


Fluff Bingo

by NN1895 (Nemo_Nunca)



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Asexual Character, Disability, Disabled Character, Dragons, Fluff, Forced Marriage, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, ProwlxJazz Anniversary 2020, Transformer Sparklings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 56,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_Nunca/pseuds/NN1895
Summary: A collection of fics for the ProwlxJazz Anniversary 2020 Romance Bingo.Currently featuring:Tired, fading rockstar Jazz finds out he has a baby!Prowl discovers he has fake memories because his torturer is too nice to tortureProwl marries mysterious mech who bought his debt and then gets Taken Care Of - with regular meals, soft berths, and extremely indulgent bathsAce!Jazz who loves dancing with ProwlJazz being carried around like a kitten by an infatuated Dragon!ProwlUnexpected Highschool AU with Disfigured Protagonist ProwlBaby robots on a human army base make everything betterMore shameless fluff to come.  Guaranteed no sad endings.  Guaranteed no editing.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl
Comments: 278
Kudos: 334
Collections: ProwlxJazz Anniversary 2020





	1. Secret Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixed this bit! Thank you to everyone who didn't say anything about the fact that I have Jazz lamenting the fact that he can't book a show and then two lines later claiming that of course he could book a show, they love him! I was obviously writing two versions of this story at once.

“Fragging fragit to the slagging pit!” Jazz slammed into the bar trailing a gust of frigid acid rain in with him.

“Language, Jazz,” Blaster cheerfully scolded. “Little ears are listening!”

“Oh, and slag you too!” Cliffjumper shouted from behind the bar. “Mirage moved my bench! If I can’t reach the high grade you’re getting squat!” There was a tinkle of metal on metal and then a thump. Cliffjumper hauled himself up and pushed the bottle towards Jazz. “Here, it’s a bit old and its not fancy, but it’ll warm you up at least.”

“Thanks,” he said, not even bothering to pour it into a cube, popping the seal and taking a swallow. He settled onto a stool, casting an exhausted optic at the empty room.

“You look like you needed it. Have you booked a show in Jinx yet?”

“Nope. I know we need one. If we can’t get a booking in Jinx then we can’t afford to go on to Crystal City. The gap between it and Iacon is too wide without a stop inbetween and too expensive without doing a few shows.”

“Don’t they love you in Jinx?” Blaster asked, lifting another chunk of the sound system out of his subspace and started to hook it up. He was outfitting the nightclub for free with all his old equipment to lighten their tour load.

“Yeah.” Jazz rubbed a hand over his helm and pressed hard against his temple. Blaster looked at him concerned.

“Hey, what’s going on? Are you having trouble booking shows?”

“No.” And he wasn’t. A dozen theaters and community centers in Jinx would hire him to do the shows. The problem was that he was beginning to realize that they all seemed familiar, not because it was a small city, but because he’d been booked by all of them before.

It was only his twentieth tour. He was considered to be in the prime of his career, such as it was. Not a megaton-super star like some of the other musicians, but a good, dependable singer that made people happy. He liked it. He liked his life. 

“I just…Blaster I’m starting to wonder why I keep going on tour.”

“Because you love meeting new people, you’re an attention siphon, and you can’t sit still for more than a klik at a time,” Blaster rattled off without pausing.

“Yeah…except I’ve been sitting in this bar every night for half a decaorn and I think I like it.” 

Blaster stopped what he was doing and turned, letting the wires fall to the ground.

“Jazz…are you thinking of -?”

Jazz shook his head.

“I don’ wan’ outta the music business. I jus’ – I need somethin’ more than a few nights in a place seeing the touristy bits before breezing out pretendin’ I’ll keep in touch with the fans there.” It was a lonely life.

The thought hung in the air and before either of them could go further Jazz’s comm pinged. He answered.

“Jazz of Polyhex?” It was an even, low toned femme’s voice and for a moment Jazz was intrigued. When had he given out his comm number?

“Yeah?”

“This is Forceps from the Praxian Enforcer Hospital. I’m calling on behalf of a mech called Prowl?”

Jazz froze as the name threw scattered, unsorted memories files at him –

_Prowl looking so surprised at Jazz’s request for dinner, trying to hid how pleased he was –_

_Prowl glaring at a turbofox kit that followed him at the park as Jazz laughed –_

_Prowl, young and vulnerable, as Jazz leaned in for a kiss –_

“Yes, yes I know him. What’s happened?” He hasn’t seen Prowl since…since the night he’d won the title of “Biggest Aft-head” away from Getaway.

“Enforcer Prowl has not returned to his home for several megacycles. We’re not worried yet!” She hastened to reassure him. “He may simply be out of communication, either damaged or he’s in one of the areas of the city with radio blocking. The Enforcers are putting all their resources into finding him. The Captain is confident he’ll be found, in good health, soon.”

Jazz’s spark stopped trying to break the sound barrier with its spinning.

“Oh, tha’s good. I’m…glad.” He hadn’t thought that he would still care so much after all this time. Prowl was supposed to be a youthful indiscretion or an early mid-functioning crisis. “Can I ask why ya callin’ me?”

“Since we don’t know when Officer Prowl will return, we need you to come to Praxus and take custody of your sparkling.”

“Huh?”


	2. Stranded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an epic and unexpected battle on an enemy space ship, Prowl and the new head of SpecOps are stranded...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are fun!

Prowl had never managed to cultivate the habit of good impressions. He had seen other people make them. He had been told what he did wrong when trying to make them. He had even been forced to read a few books as a sparkling about “Manners” and “Social Skills.”

Once he was an adult, his caregivers, from his creators to his teachers, had quietly given up and Prowl had breathed a sigh of relief and given up as well.

Unfortunately that meant that he was now stranded in the engine room of an enemy ship with the new head of special operations. A mech he’d also rather publicly reamed out earlier that cycle in front of Optimus Prime and six of his generals.

It had been Jazz’s introduction meeting.

_Prowl was flipping through the files on his datapad as fast as he could, trying to figure out what the actual point of the reports coming in from Ops were. None of them followed the same format. Half were in the most incomprehensible ramble that Prowl had run it through a debugger twice to see if the file had been accidentally corrupted. He was pressing his knees against the underside of the table so hard he was denting it, trying to stay calm.  
_

_“And this is our new head of Special Operations – Jazz of –“_

_“You!” Prowl burst from his chair, cutting off Optimus – who stared at him open-mouthed – mid sentence. Jazz only seemed mildly surprised, didn’t even reset his optics. The generals in the room had all been on the other end of Prowl’s anger and wisely decided, as a group, to sacrifice the newest member._

_“Your reports are the most incomprehensible static I have ever read! Do any of your mechs even know how to read? Are you afraid of formatting your information?”_

_“Who’s report do ya got?” Jazz asked smoothly, walking close enough to peer down at the pad in Prowl’s hand. The Generals collectively held their breath. Optimus opened a line to the base psychologist just in case._

_“Ah,” Jazz said, once he could read the name. “No, that’ll be Crusher’s report. He can’t read. Mainly because we only rescued him from the slave pits in Kaon this vorn.”_

_In the dead silence Prowl’s quiet “oh” echoed._

Now they were both trapped on a ghost ship, floating above the planet, but liable to start falling out of orbit any time. Prowl was keeping himself occupied by trying to undo vent covers with a broken stripe of steel while Commander Jazz tried to hack the computer. Prowl was aware they were both studiously ignoring the other.

Long – long – long habit had taught Prowl that it was best to remain silent during these times unless the other bot spoke first. He was not good at “reading the room” as his third councilor had said.

“Lis’n, ‘m sorry ‘bout the reports.”

Prowl dropped his improvised pry-bar.

“Oops. Sorry for startlin’ ya.” Prowl turned around. Jazz was now leaning against the console, rubbing at the side of his neck with a servo.

“You did not. I was not expecting to be apologized to by you.” Jazz frowned. 

“Whada mean ‘by you’?”

Unsure why Jazz was upset, Prowl continued, hoping he wasn’t about to start a fight in the tiny room. His skills in combat were good, but nothing compared with a special operations agent.

“Mech usually do not apologize to the mechs that insult them,” he said nervously shuffling further away. 

Jazz’s face changed. Prowl tried to pin down exactly how it did – his optics widened, his cables loosened, and his mouth hung slightly open.

Prowl looked down at the improvised pry-bar on the floor. He wanted to reach down and keep working on the vent covers, but you weren't supposed to keep working when someone was speaking to you.

“Mech, I shouldn’t have been letting Crusher write his own reports when I knew he couldn’t really write. My job is to get you the information. Part ‘o that is the report writin’. If you don’ understand it, what’s the point?” Prowl found himself hesitantly nodding along, following the fluttering of Jazz's hands in the air as he gestured to avoid his optics.

“I…should not have yelled at you though,” Prowl hazarded, knowing that was something people hated about him. 

“Nah, I might a’ deserved ta get yelled at. It was jus’ your timin’, Prowler. Next time you got a scraplet under your plating about me, call me inta’ the office ta blast that temper. Don’ wait 'til your tha’ mad.”

“Okay.” Timing? No one had ever said it was his timing! Prowl started to integrate this new information into the old subroutines he’d created with the councilors. They’d mostly sat unused since then, but if Jazz was willing to –

“Prowler? Prowler are you there?” He jerked.

“Yes. I was thinking about social routines. Could you explain timing? Would you say it played a bigger role in what I did wrong than getting angry at you? I also understand that embarrassing other mechs in front of new people or superiors is considered very bad. Does that also affect the ‘timing’ aspect of our encounter?” Prowl said all of this very fast, feeling something like excitement bubbling up. Maybe this time he could get it right? If you could figure out the pattern, give it one easy rule –

“Prowler? Hey, if you wan’ me ta answer those questions, ya need to keep listening to me.” 

“Yes. Of course.” Jazz had actually come close enough to touch by now and was using an overturned packing box as a seat, folding his legs up underneath him to be on the same eye level. Prowl resisted the urge to correct him, parroting back his creators words: _We sit on chairs, Prowl, not our pedes_.

“I’d say timing is one of the most important things, but there were other things too. Not jus tha’ I was tryin’ ta make a good impression or that they were my superiors. If we’d a’ been friends I wouldna been so angry. So it’s how well we know each other, how well I knew the Generals and the Prime, how well you knew them, the timing – it’s a lot of different things.”

“Oh.” Prowl felt small and cold again. Just when he thought he could get it, it all unraveled again. There was never any pattern that worked 100% of the time. Most of them barely worked at all.

“But, hey, Prowl? It’s okay if you get it wrong. Everyone gets it wrong sometimes.” He smiled and Prowl could feel his spark flutter.

“Not at much as me,” he said lowly, dropping his gaze to look at Jazz's elegant, expressive hands.

“Yeah, but being polite isn’t the end all and be all of friendship. We can get along jus’ fine without it.”

“Friendship?” 

“Yeah. I think we’d make really great friends.” He held out his hand. “I would like to be friends, if that’s okay with you, Prowler.”

“Yes. I would like to be friends.” Prowl took the other mech’s hand and shook it.

His spark fluttered again.


	3. Secret Baby 2

To Jazz’s immense surprise the library kiosk at the transport station did not have a parenting book titled “So Your Ex Went Missing and You Now Have a Lovechild.”

  
It did have “Brightstreak’s Guide to Bonding with Your Adopted Sparklings” which he was frantically scanning as the shuttle descended into the Praxian transport hub.

  
So far it had prevented him from filling his subspace with toys, panicking over his patchy finish, and had compelled him to have a licensed child psychologist waiting in the wings.

  
Mental-Breakdown Prevention - only 17 shanix!

  
The shuttle bumped down and Jazz filed off with the other bots in a daze, half looking where he was going and half trying to read quicker. From there he drove to a hotel close to the hospital – recommended by Forceps – and commed the doctor to let her know he was arriving.

  
Jazz opened the door to his hotel room and opened a comm channel to Blaster automatically – he always reminded Blaster of the gig times. You only tried to play a venue once without speakers before it became an ingrained habit.

  
“Jazzy? Did your shuttle land okay?” came Blaster’s concerned voice over the channel. He sounded a little dazed too and Jazz realized it had to be the middle of the night cycle back in Iacon.

  
“Yeah, just…just checkin’ in. Go back to sleep Blaster.”

  
“Mmmkay. See ya later Jazz, be safe.”

  
Then Jazz was alone and the contradictory emotions slammed into him at the same time.

  
It was all so familiar – new city, new hotel room, travel-lagged – and yet it really wasn’t. He’s hardly allowed himself time to think before jumping on the shuttle, driven by panic more than anything else.

  
He wasn’t here to play at a few theaters and then breeze onto the next city. Across the street there was a sparkling that was missing his only family and was waiting on Jazz to fix that. He was filled with terror so strong it made his joints tremble and at the same time a curious excitement. Blaster was right – Jazz _loved_ meeting new people and he’d never been about to meet anyone as important as his sparkling.

  
He had barely known what to ask the doctor. He’d stammered out that he’d be there soon and asked how ‘his’ sparkling was doing. She’d assured him that he was in the hospital for slight malnutrition only, as it had taken the enforcers two cycles to realize the Prowl was missing.

  
“He’s very confused and is asking for his carrier. From what I’ve been told, Officer Prowl did not socialize much and the little one doesn’t really have any connection to the other enforcers.”

  
Yeah…that sounded like Prowl. When Jazz met him he’d long since given up on making friends with his colleagues. It had been one of the things that had pushed them together. It had been Jazz’s second ever tour and only a few cycles since half his crew had stormed off after an argument with his (now ex) manager. Jazz had been hiding in a small café where the cubes came pre-seasoned with a layer of grime and none of the resizing mechanisms worked on the chairs. Jazz was slightly shorter than the average Praxian and the broken chair had left him a full foot above the top of the table. Having to climb into the chair and then reach down to pick up his energon had done nothing to improve his mood.

  
Prowl had come in like a storm cloud, ordered the strongest high grade they had and sat at the table next to Jazz. Or tried to. The chair gave way beneath him and plunged him all the way to the ground, spilling a full cube of paint-peelingly strong high grade on the both of them.

  
So Jazz’s first good view of the mech had been from a broken chair, looking down at a devastatingly handsome face and hearing a despairing whisper of “I don’t even _like_ high grade!” before hearing the repeated clang of a helm on floor.

  
He’d offered to buy the mech another drink, explaining that they might as well suffer together. One had turned into five very quickly and Jazz had learned that Prowl was being shipped off to his third new precinct because he couldn’t stop criticizing his coworkers, his boss, and – after a few more drinks – the entire justice system of Praxus.

  
Jazz wondered if Prowl had ever developed a taste for high grade. Jazz had certainly lost his.

  
That didn’t mean he didn’t crave a drink the entire drive to the enforcer hospital. Once he walked in he wanted one even more.

  
Enforcers in Praxus were known for two things: their deep affinity for rules, codes, and guidelines and a lack of artistry that hurt Jazz right down to the soul. The waiting room was a sterile light green with bare metal accents that made Jazz feel like he was stuck in someone’s coolant tank. Or that someone had purged their coolant tank on the walls. Sunstreaker would have dropped into stasis to see this room.

  
He walked as quickly as possible and told the receptionist his business. He was then directed to the back where Forceps had her office.

  
He knocked.

  
“Come in, Jazz.” Man that voice! Jazz had a brief fantasy of asking her to sing a few bars with him just to see how low it could go.

  
The doctor’s office was just as minimalist as the waiting room, with darker green walls the doctor had wisely covered up with as many shelves and storage cabinets as possible. The doctor herself was seated at a terminal and Jazz could see her moving tiny squares around on an enormous grid.

  
“One moment.” She flicked two red squares into the recycling icon and turned the terminal off. “Thank you, I was just finishing the schedule. I’ve asked my nurse Tourniquet to retrieve Siren for you. They’ll be here in a minute and you can start signing the forms.”

  
Siren. His sparkling’s name was Siren. Jazz hadn’t dared ask. If they realized he hadn’t even known about the sparkling…

  
He didn’t want to take the chance of the bitlet disappearing into the foster care system. Not with Prowl gone under suspicious circumstances and all of Jazz’s warning lights flashing BE CAREFUL at him.

  
“Yes, of course. I do want to let you know that since Prowl is his primary caregiver, I don’t have the most up-to-date information on him,” Jazz said using his best Iaconian accent, the one he used when signing recording deals.

  
“Oh, of course. We understand, but the utmost caution must be taken when sparklings are concerned,” the doctor said before asking him to read and sign fewer forms than when he’d rented an amp the week before. And it hadn’t even been a good amp.

  
Jazz entered the information faster, ready to get the kid out of here and somewhere safe. He had friends he needed to call first, but by that evening the cheap hotel room across the road would be the safest place in Praxus.

  
He had signed the last document just as there was another rap on the door and it slide open. Jazz felt his spark seize up. Then he turned around.

  
So small. The sparkling in the nurse’s arms was the size of his shin plate. He could hold him in one arm. Factoring in the time he would have been carried, Siren could only have been 72 decacycles old at most. Just past the toddling stage and approaching the adventurous stage according to his book.

  
“Stop it, it’s okay sweetie,” the nurse cooed. He was having a hard time holding the bitlet, who was trying to squirm down and getting more upset by the minute. “He’s being difficult today,” the nurse said to Jazz with a laugh.

  
“No more crying. Here, here’s your creator.” He tried to hand Siren to Jazz, who stepped forward, but the bitlet was having none of it.

  
Without warning, the tiny mech opened his mouth and screamed.

  
Jazz was certain he had completely blown his audials in the seconds it took for them to reset. He was lying flat on his back on the floor. The doctor seemed to have dived behind her terminal and gotten off with the least damage. The nurse was kneeling in the doorway, hands clamped to his helm, moaning in pain.

  
That was not just a scream, that was a sound approaching sonic boom standards. At the moment his size prevented it from gaining the power needed to weaponize it, but the high pitch was brutal enough.

  
Siren sat on the floor, peeping miserably and looking around himself.

  
Looking for Prowl.

  
“Aww, sweetling,” the door opened and another nurse came in. She looked around at them and then zeroed in on Siren. She knelt down to wrap Siren up in her arms. Siren scooted away and started to cry harder. “Let me give you a hug. It’ll make you feel better. It’s okay,” she pushed closer and tried to grab his arm.

  
“Hand him to his creator, Floodlight. He probably needs –“

  
“Stop.” Jazz shook his helm to dispel the last of the sound damage. “Leave him.” That got him a disapproving look, but Jazz just stared back. He remembered this part from the book.

  
_“Sparklings are going to cry. Why are they crying? It’s probably something you’ve done, idiot. Get over it and work on solving the problem. Listen to them, give them space, offer comfort, and if they tell you - frag off. Don’t get your pistons in a twist if they don’t want you to comfort them. This isn’t about your ego. I’m not thinking about you. Your sparkling isn’t thinking about you. You need to stop thinking about you. If you can’t handle them not wanting to hug you when their world spinning faster than a gyroscope, then adopting is not for you.”_

  
Jazz took a deep breath and knelt down.

  
“I know ya wan’ ya carrier right now. I’m no him, but I’m going ta keep ya safe til ‘e gets back. Um…do ya wan’ a hug? ’S okay if ya don’,” Jazz held his arms out awkwardly, ignoring the disdainful sniff of the nurse. If Siren didn’t want a hug, he wasn’t getting one. The book hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

  
Siren threw himself into Jazz’s chassis with a wail that shook the windows.

  
Operating on an instinct he didn’t know he had, Jazz wrapped his arms around the tiny vibrating frame and tucked the little helm under his chin. He squeezed him close and waited. Once the sobs died down into whimpers Jazz stood, Siren’s legs automatically going around his waist and Jazz’s arm going underneath him to support him. He turned to the doctors.

  
“If there’s nothing else, we’ll be going now,” he said, his tone sharp and clipped.

  
Prowl had hated being touched when he didn’t want it or wasn’t expecting it. It seemed Siren had inherited that particularity and Jazz wasn’t going to let anyone – not even doctors – do that to Siren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I feel an explanation is needed. I have never actually posted anything. Ever. Mostly I write for myself. These drabbles only got here because a long stressful day of caffeine paired with a long stressful night with booze ended with me digging up this account. I'm posting this before I start to over think it. Sorry for the heavy handed message of "Kids can say no to hugs."
> 
> Also, I was going to write an OC for the sparkling, but then when I was writing it I wrote the bit about the windows shaking as hyperbole and thought, what if it wasn't hyperbole? Thus Siren. Siren as in police and siren as in singers that lured sailors to their doom.


	4. Amnesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl starts putting together pieces that his time spent with the notorious Decepticon interrogator Jazz was not what it seemed to be.
> 
> Hurt/comfort - very little hurt/whole lot of graphic, snuggly comfort

Amnesia

“Some mechs are just stronger,” the femme said, shooting a disgusted look at one of Ratchet’s orderlies. The orderly caught it and scurried away, leaving Prowl alone with the arrogant Special Ops agent.

“It is not a matter of physical or mental strength, but simple facts. I was tortured. I was hacked,” Prowl explained. “There should be _some_ residual damage. I should be experiencing emotional surges or emotional distance. I should have physical reactions. My processor would have been rewriting code excessively to try and deal with the situation – some of those reactions should still be present, but they are not. This is not the expected recovery for any mech.” 

Prowl would have liked to stand up from the medical berth and try to give this discussion some semblance of official protocol, but he was hooked up to enough wires to fry a cityformer. The femme had refused to give her name, but she was clearly low down on the Spec Ops chain. He’d thought his request for a review of his experiences would have garnered at least a little more attention.

“Prowl, you’re the strongest mech on this base! I’ve watched you stare down mechs like Megatron and Shockwave without flinching. Half the ‘soldiers’ here would be sobbing into their servos if _Skywarp_ looked at them wrong.” Prowl wasn’t sure what to say to that so he started to casually unplug some of the wires he was certain didn’t lead to alarms. If she wasn’t going to help he might be able to use her as a cover to escape the medical bay.

“It’s not a matter of strength,” he argued back, pretending to lean forward, keeping an eye on Ratchet’s trained attack orderlies as he unplugged another wire in his inner thigh. She might deride them, but she’d never seen them let loose on a patient that wasn’t following medical orders. Prowl wasn’t going to risk upsetting them for anything less than a 97% certainty rate. “Even cybertronium melts in the smelter. I would like to request a formal review.”

“Denied,” she said, waving a hand carelessly. “We aren’t going to investigate why a highly decorated and trained solider didn’t react like a new recruit. Get yourself healthy again, Officer Prowl. You’re one of the ones that’s going to win us the war.”

And then she was gone.

And then the orderly noticed Prowl had managed to unplug fourteen monitors without tripping the sensors.

0-0-0

What Prowl didn’t say was that he knew what he was talking about because he’d _been tortured before_. He had been captured as a young enforcer by a small time gang that was looking to hack and reprogram a few enforcers instead of the traditional bribery and threats. His recovery then had also not been standard, but it had been expected. This was not how he was supposed to react and no matter how much the Spec Ops and the base Psych tried to reassure him, he knew something was wrong. He had held back one key detail.

None of the Autobots on the new base knew about his glitch.

His glitch should have been triggered at least once – by the shock of the capture if nothing else. Therefore he should have experienced helm aches and delayed sensory input until he could run the two cycle process to reset his tactical systems or have a medic do it. None of which he’d done. He’d even had a medic run a basic processor scan on him as they were releasing him and no residue of a crash was found.

Once he was back in his quarters, Prowl decided to investigate himself. He reclined on his berth and offlined his optics. 

His memories were scattered and fragmented. That was to be expected after a hack. He took his time sorting through them carefully. Something was tugging at him. There was something wrong with all of this and there was something wrong with how he was remembering him.

Him?

Them. His memories. It wasn’t like a normal hack, he was sure of it. He retrieved the memories he still had.

_He was in a dark room. A face swam into view and his processor pulled up the files immediately on a known Decepticon interrogator. Jazz. He always seemed to grab the newest recruits_

_“Well, well, well little Autobot –“ the face said, but another voice was overlaid on it._

_“All is well Rest..”_

_“Let’s see if a bit of pain doesn’t loosen those memory chips.” Prowl winced as he remembered the foot connecting to his stomach plating. It was exactly like the time Ironhide had caught him the edge of a table when they were helping Red Alert move._

**Initializing search…**

_“Want to try something different? Ever been electrocuted?” Prowl spat at him that being shocked was nothing new. The volts running through him were familiar friends after how many times the medics at the Institute had tried re-configuring his glitched processor._

**Initializing search…**

_A different day, the light was wrong. He knew it was days later, but the lighting hadn’t changed. Jazz was swinging a cube of energon in his hand. The soft glow indicated it had been warmed._

_“How about we make a deal? I’ll give you this cube and you let me into that nice juicy processor of yours?”_

_“Go slag yourself,” Prowl said calmly. Jazz frowned and threw the cube at him. It spilled across his chest and arms. But it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t cold either. It didn’t feel like anything._

_He remembered a phantom sensation, the bare wire recollection of a hand cradling his helm and warm energon pouring into his mouth._

_His hand was crunched under a pede and Prowl heard himself scream even as the sounds of the rescue team broke through –_

Prowl jerked out of the memories with a splitting helmache and a rolling tank. A little beeping message insisted that he purge his tank – an old remnant of code from sparklinghood that should have long been overwritten.

For a moment he vented to cool his frame and settled a hand on his twitching abdominal plating.

He might not know what was wrong, but he had a list of things that weren’t right and an idea on what to do next.

0-0-0

Prowl pulled up every file that listed “Decepticon-Jazz” as a keyword. The search gave him three names for mech that had also been interrogated by him: Hot Rod, Groove, and Moonracer.

He went to Moonracer first. He found her in the shooting range, recalibrating the long range artillery. She had not experienced violent recharge purges, behavior changes, or any flashbacks.

“I got back and I almost felt – energized,” she confessed. “Everyone told me it was just my code feeding more energy into my fight or flight reactions. I didn’t even think about it much after it happened.” He optics darkened and her face fell. “It wasn’t the same the next time I got captured.”

Prowl put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned against him briefly, closing her vents to warm her frozen system and pulling the heat from his.

“Did you seek help the second time?” he asked gently and was relieved to feel her nod. 

He stayed with her until another bot arrived and struck up a conversation with her. Prowl watched her plating settle and her tight fists soften.

Hot Rod was next. He was much the same except for the part where he did have recharge terrors afterwards – just not what he’d expected.

“I was expecting – you know – horrible nightmares about being back in a cell or even fully remembering some of the torturing because I barely encoded anything in my memory. Ratchet reckons the lack of fuel meant my frame was conserving energy and memory encoding got nixed. Instead I just kept dreaming about this little mech sobbing and not being able to hold him. He won’t stop crying no matter what I do. Ended up helping with the sparkling center just to be able to make the crying stop for someone. I really got to like the kids though.”

Hot Rod’s interview required a day of recuperation and the helmache from before still hadn’t subsided.

Groove was the most different. He remembered nothing. 

“Not a thing,” he said calmly. “I remember falling in battle and waking up in medbay and nothing in between. The only reason we know the name of the mech is I sent it to Hot Spot before someone on the Decepticon side realized we were a combiner and put up a block.”

Prowl asked his brothers. They were all lounging on the same berth in their leader Hot Spot’s room.

“We got a lot of fear and then the block went up, but, well, you can’t ever really block-block a bond,” Streetwise said, passing his datapad to the other brother – Blades? – and sitting up. “After the block it was mostly snatches of feelings. He felt scared, then tired, then safe, then scared again, and then he was awake and knew he was in the medbay.”

“So he felt safe when he realized he was in the medbay and then had a relapse?” Prowl clarified, rubbing as his helm vigorously to dispel the pain and fog.

“No, dude,” one of them piped up, “he felt safe while he was captured and then sacred while he was being rescued and then he was in the medbay.”

No further prodding could dredge up answers. The brothers had no idea why Groove would feel safe while in a prison cell at the mercy of a known torturer. As far as they were concerned it was probably just Groove being out of it with low fuel and not knowing where he was. He was apparently famous for his relaxed approach to threats and inability to detect danger.

All three interviews gave him something to think about, but none were as clear as he’d wanted. He spent the night at his desk pouring over them and the files and his own and found nothing. 

It was just edging towards morning when he felt a click in his processor.

 **Search Complete**.

That explained the helm ache. His tactical systems had been running in the background the whole time. He shook his head to clear the fog. It wasn’t the first time his tactical computer had done this, but he’d thought he’d had a better hold on it. He opened the contents of the search.

One of the benefits of his tactical system was that it recorded everything. His memories were often more accurate than dedicated recording devices. And it was programed to see patterns and find matches.

It had found one.

Search: feeling associated with being kicked.

Search: feeling and movements associated with being shocked.

The first brought up the date he and Ironhide had helped Red Alert move his habsuite. It had been compared with the feeling of Jazz kicking him. Match.

The second search brought up the times he’d been experimented on under the guise of ‘medicine.’ It was compared with Jazz using the shock stick on him in the cell. Match. It matched right down to how his frame had twisted and arched. The medical berth replaced with the floor of a cell.

“Red Alert,” he commed, using the highest alert level. “Lock down me, Groove, Hot Rod, and Moonracer.”

“Done,” Red Alert replied. “What’s going on?”

“We have implanted memories. They aren’t real.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind reviews! I'm really enjoying writing these little stories, but they keep growing. Sorry for spelling mistakes or misplaced sentences. 
> 
> This story is one of my favorite tropes - using your mental powers to comfort someone. That comes next chapter though.


	5. Scandal Induced Marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl has been banished to Cybertron's underworld. After an awful scandal he is forced to bond to a terrifying mech of the shadows who will stop at nothing to get Prowl in his berth...fueled, healed, and recharging for once, Prowl!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of rape, implied rape, trafficking 
> 
> This is the hurt. Stay tuned for the comfort.

Prowl had been surviving in Cybertron’s underworld for nearly three vorns.

It was not the horrifying pit of murder, torture, and drugs that he’d feared.

It was more or less the very poor, criminals running from the law, and descendants of previous inhabitants that had never known any other life.

The poor were so poor that they had long since ceased to interact with the cities above in any meaningful way. They had no formal jobs and no recorded identities. They existed most in those narrow strips where the upper cities dipped down into the lower levels: tunnels out of the city, factory basements and the edge of the plains.

The criminals were kept mostly in check by the sheer number of poor mechs, all armed with the knowledge that the law had no power down here. The spat of killings that had first drawn Prowl down here so many vorns ago had ended when the killer was torn apart and left in pieces around one of the main communal areas.

The third group were a law unto themselves. They had been born to the poor and the criminal, but were neither. They created their own commerce and their own trade. They didn’t have laws like the upper world with rules and numbers. Instead they had a set of hybrid law-customs that changed continuously and were enforced only by the people affected. 

One of those law-customs was the reason he was currently locked in a makeshift cell inside the domain of one of the more powerful criminals in Polyhex.

0-0-0

His day had started out as normal as it could. He’d grown used to waking up in darkness and damp. The routine of increasing his optic sensitivity, drying the seams of his plating where rust was starting to form, and checking for anyone lurking outside his door would never be comforting, but it was at least familiar. He closed his vents and let his internal temperature skyrocket to evaporate as much of the liquid as he could without frying himself. It did long term damage to plating and weakened the coating on his wiring, but Prowl wouldn’t live long enough for that to become an issue. 

He left the tiny, carved alcove that he’d staked as his own and wandered into one of the side tunnels that led up, close to the surface. It was larger than most, with actual glowing crytals and would lead them right into the access tunnels under the Iacon Library Gardens.

“Hey, Monochrome!” The large femme swaggered towards him. “Ready to earn your energon today?” Her leer made him want to race back to his little alcove and hide behind the scrap metal door.

“No thank you, Reverse. Is Fender around?” Reverse ran the only all-femme brothel in Polyhex. She had offered several times to make an exception for him. Once or twice she’d been insistent enough that Prowl been forced to hide away in an access shaft until she forgot about him.

Rape was a rare crime in the underworld, not because of morals, but because it was viewed as a kind of theft. And when bots had very little, they tended to defend what they had violently. Since the goods in this case were intangible, they were returned in different ways. Everything from requiring the rapist to provide service to having the rapists private parts removed could be expected.

“Old Fender-Bender hasn’t come in yet. You taking him around again?” 

The only work Prowl had been able to find beside a brothel was bodyguard for those looking to journey too close to the surface. He was combat trained, he knew about the surface, and his paint – though in terrible shape by upper world standards – allowed him to move more easily through surface bots.

“He requested that I accompany him yesterday and meet him here in the morning.” 

“Idiot,” she said, scratching what was obviously badly applied, but brand new grey and purple paint. It flaked down onto him and stuck against the ever present moisture. He ran too cool to keep it from sticking to him in the tunnels.

While he waited, keeping an eye on Reverse, Prowl rotated a shoulder discretely. The pain of the rust infection was getting worse. He wouldn’t be the only one down there missing a limb from the rust, but if he was honest with himself, it scared him. It would leave him defenseless to the darker threats of the underworld, things worse than Reverse and her brothel.

While Reverse might rape him and might put him to work, she would also keep him in good condition and leave his processor intact. He had witnessed the aftermath of far worse things. And of everything he had suffered, that would push him to the edge. That would be a moment that he finally gave in.

He was pulled from these dark thoughts by the arrival of Fender.

The mech was old and falling apart, but he was one of the few kind people Prowl had met, possibly in his entire functioning. He stayed safe mostly by being too weak and broken to be of interest. Whatever interest his frame might have held was long gone and he traded in harmless, cheap carvings and woven metal hangings. The sort of thing any mech or femme could turn out in a matter of hours if they wanted to. The sight of him with his faded brown paint and single neon yellow pinstripe clanking down the tunnel, warmed Prowl’s spark.

“Monochrome!” he shouted as he got closer, limping faster. “We’re doing a great job today! I have genu-INE jet from Kaon. Carved it up super nice. Should go for a bolt or two!” Prowl gently tugged the cart out of his hands and started to push it up the steady incline himself. Fender had argued against that in the beginning, but Prowl had worn him down.

“Very light for jet,” he said, hoping to keep the mech talking long enough to pass Reverse. It couldn’t actually be jet – the fragile, expensive material had to be imported from organic worlds, but imitations were popular. 

For some reason this sent the mech into a vent rattling wheeze of a laugh. Prowl actually had to grab his arm to keep him from falling into the wall.

“It’s special jet, mechling! It’ll float right off the cart! Morning, Reverse!” He called as they passed. She nodded to him and looked up the tunnel.

“Morning, Fender-Bender.” 

“Morning! And don’t you look lovely!” 

“Thanks. One of the perks of working with this seller. He had a bit of extra paint sent down to sweeten the deal.” She barred her pointed, sharkticon teeth at them in a smile. “Let me know if you find my next shipment coming down. It’s late.” 

“Will do!” 

Once they were out of sight of Reverse, Fender did something unusual. He linked arms with Prowl and leaned on him slightly.

“Are you functional, Fender?”

“Fine, fine. Just feeling my age today. Don’t mind me if I need a little sit down, eh?” He seemed cheerful enough, but Prowl couldn’t help but worry.

“If you need anything, if I can be of assistance – just ask.” The warm fingers tightened slightly and Fender looked up at his with a fond smile. 

“You’re one of the good one, Monochrome. Down here and up there. Out of everyone I’ve ever met, I think you’re the only one I’ll ever miss.” He leaned his helm against Prowl’s upper arm.

This did nothing to reassure him, but Prowl let it drop. There was a light ahead. Probably Reverse’s shipment.

“Hello!” Fender called out when they were even with the other mech. He was too friendly today, even for him.

The other mech was pulling a trailer behind him and slipping slightly on the steep pathway. He only grunted and tried to get past them. Prowl edged closer to the wall and kept Fender tight on his right side to protect him from the thrown gravel as the truck passed on their left.

That was when Fender decided to trip and not just fall, but spin under Prowl’s arm and into the direct path of the other mech and the trailer.

It took second for Prowl to snap back into enforcer mode. He barked out “HALT,” lights flashing, arm raised, even as he dove to cover Fender’s fragile, rust lace plating with his own.

The wheels hit his shoulder with crushing force. The plate crumpled inwards, but he dug his elbow into the soft lead below and braced. All three of them went screeching downwards in an uncontrollable slide for two kliks that felt like two megacycles. 

The plating on his shoulder snapped off. The truck’s grill slammed into his helm and bashed his face into the ground. The sound reverberated until it sounded like the entire underground was collapsing.

Finally the mech’s wheels got traction and combined with Prowl using his whole body as a brake, they came to a stop halfway down the tunnel.

“Fender!” Prowl tried to unravel him from the tangle frantically. What if he’d crushed the old mech? What if he’d smeared him halfways down the access tunnel? What if –

“Present! That was inconvenient,” came a muffled voice from just under his chassis. A small brown head popped up and Prowl nearly cried in relief. The delivery mech was twice their size and mostly on top of Prowl, continually crushing his left side. The trailer was on its side up the tunnel a distance away, the hitch snapped in half. 

Once they were all sorted - the delivery mech got a good amount of yelling in – Prowl half carried Fender back up to where his cart and its anti-gravity magnet wheels were waiting.

“I hate to ask,” Fender began, “but I got a bit banged up, would it be okay if –“ Prowl didn’t let him finish the sentence, just lifted him up and set him on top of the cart and started pushing. 

“You weight more than you look,” Prowl grunted. He had to dig his pedes in to keep moving. He wasn’t going to complain though. Today had proved that Fender was safer tucked away in his cart and that was where he was going to stay for all future trips if Prowl had anything to say about it.

“I’ve been upping the minerals in my energon!” Fender said proudly, smacking his fist into his chest with a hollow clang. Can’t keep up with you young bots anymore without it!” 

Prowl laughed and let Fender ramble on about how much healthier he’d been since he’d started taking his new mineral blend. It wouldn’t help – nothing but a medic, dry air and light would stop the spread of the rust, but it gave the mech hope and that was something Prowl couldn’t do.

They reached the entrance to the upper world too soon. Prowl spun the wheel and the large round door opened into the much nicer, cleaner garden access tunnels. The smell of crystals and growing medium were comforting. 

“Would you like me to help you set up, Fender? Or I’m sure I can acquire some morning energon from one of the stalls.” He lifted Fender down gently and pushed the cart towards the elevator up to the gardens. “There’s always one stall in the garden with cheap cubes.”

“Ah, maybe not today,” said Fender, sounding…sad? A hand came down and stopped him. “There’s something we need to talk about, mechling.”

“Fender? Are you okay? Were you hurt?” The scenarios ran through is processor – hidden energon leak, ruptured tank, cracked sparkcase –

“Settle, Monochrome, settle. I didn’t want to tell you because, well, you’re not the best liar in a world. I didn’t want you to give the game away.” He winked. “But I’m glad it was you today. I want you to meet her.”

“Meet who?” Prowl was confused. Moreso when Fender reached out and started to undo the straps on his cart, the ones holding the lid in place.

“Monochrome, this is my grandsparkling.”

A tall, grey and purple femme stood up from the inside of the cart, holding the lid in front of her shyly. 

“Hi,” she said, wings rising and falling nervously, “I’m Balewing.”

Prowl did not crash. It had been a long time since he’d had enough energon to give his processor the energy to _work_ , let alone work its way into a loop and crash.

Instead it felt like his spark was crashing.

“Fender – how – who – what’s happening?” he stumbled over the words as Fender held out a hand to help Balewing out. She took it gently, but for show only. Fender could barely support himself, let alone a nearly full grown jet.

“I met her when she was wandering the market. Told me her story and when I told her my name we realized we were family. Then she sends word that Reverse –“ Fender spat the name with uncharacteristic venom, “-was buying her for Trannis. We came up with a plan!”

“You distracted the driver,” Prowl said slowly. “And she snuck into your cart.”

“Yep!” Fender seemed to have grown a full foot taller. “She’s got a place set up for us in Iacon and I’ve got some money saved. I don’t want to leave you, mechling, but if this is the one chance I get to be with family again –“ Prowl could hear the pain his in voice and see it in his optics.

Fender’s story was neither complicated nor unique. One day he’d had a good job and a sparkmate and a sparkling and the next day one too many risky ventures had left him on the streets and his bond broken. 

“Grandcreator, could you buy us some energon before we leave? I’m a little low.” Balewing held out her hand and carefully drop a credit stick into his hand.

“Sure thing, sweetspark.” Fender beamed and hurried to the elevator. “Come on!”

“We’ll be right there!” she called back, smiling softly. Once Fender was out of sight she turned back to Prowl.

“You’re not his grandsparkling, are you?”

“No.” She looked down at her servos, clasped together and starting to tremble. “My creator told me that he’d – he’d _lost_ me in a card game.” She shuddered and vented quickly in and out. “I was at the market trying to figure out what to do. Trannis didn’t want me until after I’d had my adult upgrades. I was going to be shipped out directly from the hospital down to him. I couldn’t fly yet. I couldn’t get away –“ Prowl laid a hand on her arm. She vented quietly until she could continue. “I started talking to Fender and – and he seemed so nice that I found myself wishing he were my creator instead and I said as much, but he heard me say that he _was_ my grandcreator and then I couldn’t just tell him. We came up with this plan – well _I_ came up with this plan and I really do have a place in Iacon. I’m going to take care of him. I’ve already contacted a doctor and we’ll get him healthy. He deserves so much more than this life. Please don’t tell him.” She fell silent, looking down as her tightly twisting servos.

Prowl waited a moment before raising a hand to her shoulder and speaking.

“I would never do anything to jeopardize Fender’s happiness. He is the one kind person I’ve met in many vorns. Even before the underworld. I hope you two do well.” She nodded frantically, not looking up, stifling a sob. “May I ask what your name was before you chose Balewing?”

“I was Ebonite,” she said.

“Thank you, Ebonite. We should go up. Your grandcreator is waiting for us.”

The look she gave him was worth losing the one person he cared for.

0-0-0

They arrived on the surface with Fender’s cart to see him jogging towards them.

The look Balewing gave Fender when he presented her with engeron topped with silver sprinkles – a sparkling’s treat – outdid the one she’d given him down in the access tunnel. Prowl didn’t doubt her love for him.

“Thank you, grandcreator.” She sipped it quietly as they wandered the stalls, pushing the empty cart until they reached Fender’s typical spot.

“Won’t need the cart anymore. Might as well sell it yourself, Prowl,” he said when they parked it next to the fountain. 

“I’ll take care of it,” he replied. “You two should go now. Reverse will send word once the delivery mech reaches her and she’ll send someone to the surface to find you.” Balewing nodded and drained her cube. Fender stepped closer and looked up into Prowl’s face.

“You’re a good mechling, Prowl. You don’t deserve to rust down there with criminals.” He leaned forwards and kissed Prowl on the cheek with such paternal care it was clear why Balewing had chosen him. 

Then she picked him up and leap into the sky. They were gone between one ventilation and the next. And Prowl was alone.

The thing was, before he’d been forced into the underworld, Prowl wouldn’t have given bots like Fender a second thought. He would have helped him if he obviously needed it, but he wouldn’t have cared that Fender liked to look after tubosnails or that he was unfailingly kind. He would have been one more citizen. For all that he’d lost, Prowl couldn’t regret meeting this mech.

0-0-0

Prowl walked back down the tunnel slowly, craft his story. He really wished that Fender had included him in this. There was no reason to assume that Prowl or Fender had been involved. A simple story of Fender being taken in by one of the temples would be easily believed. No, of course they hadn’t seen a seeker on their way up.

Reverse wasn’t stupid, but she was a linear thinker. How many times had she gone looking for him, walking right by the tiny side tunnels where he hid, unable to grasp the idea of doubling back? If Balewing wasn’t in the trailer at the bottom of the tunnel, then she must not have gone into it at the top. Reverse would assume she’d been double crossed by the delivery mech or the hospital or Balewing’s creator.

Prowl still planned to move from his alcove into the tunnels closer to Polyhex. He took one of the many side tunnels leading away from the main one. Just because he was confident Reverse wouldn’t figure it out, didn’t mean he couldn’t be cautious.

The one thing he hadn’t counted on – and this could be attributed to the fact that he was so under-fueled his processor was only working at 30% - was that Trannis himself would get involved and figure it out.

Finding his thugs at the bottom of the side tunnel was something that would haunt his nightmares for vorns to come.

“Monochrome! Trannis wants you.” Then he’d been hit with a very illegal stun gun and dragged, limp and twitching, through the darkness and into Trannis’s domain.

He watched as the low ceiling of the tunnel fell away and he was looking up into the endless darkness of what had once been the ceiling of an underground energon processing plant. It was large enough to hold the several towering complexes where the wealthier residents and Trannis lived. It even had what Prowl would consider ‘stores’ that sold energon and replacement parts. 

He could see them now out of the corner of his optic. He could see the bots too. The ones that watched him being dragged past. The ones that dashed into doorways or shrank back. The ones that stared blankly at him.

The ones that didn’t move to help him.

He was dragged into Trannis’s base and shoved into a chair. They locked him into the cuffs to keep him from sliding back down onto the floor and then they left.

In front of him, Prowl could see a very large chair and a dozen screens, all showing different data streams: movies, new channels, scrolling financial reports, and one single screen devoted to a picture of Balewing, posing beside another mech and holding a diploma.

The comfort of knowing that Balewing and Fender were away from this monster wasn’t enough to beat back the spark-searing terror of knowing what was going to happen to him, but it was still there. He still didn’t regret it.

“So,” came a voice from behind him, making him jump. He only barely bit back a whine of fear. “You and Reverse have taken my future bonded from me.”

Wait. What was he saying?

“Did you think you could get away with it? Were you going to put her in that little brothel of hers after you had a go and think I wouldn’t notice?”

“I-“ Prowl tried to say, but spit static instead. His helm crashed into the side of the chair as Trannis came around front and slapped him.

“You murdered my delivery mech and had a good time with MY PROPERTY! I hope the frag was worth it because, guess what – Reverse left you to take the fall, Monochrome.” He stood in front of Prowl and leaned down. His optics were mad with anger, but underneath Prowl could see a spark of pleasure.

Then he raked his claws down the side of Prowl’s face to his waist. The pain blinded him so thoroughly that for a moment Prowl thought Trannis had ripped open his optic.

“W-wassssn’t working – with – with – her,” Prowl choked out. He couldn’t vent past the pain. He couldn’t think beyond how he could get the pain to stop.

“DON’T LIE!” Trannis roared and Prowl jerked in his bindings. He had to get away! “You still have her paint transfers!” He flicked a chip of purple off Prowl’s helm and started to pace the room. 

“I didn’t,” Prowl begged, trying to keep the blurry red-violet figure in his line of sight. It stopped in front of the picture of Balewing and her diploma.

“She was supposed to be mine. And now, you can pay me back. Do you have three thousand shanix? No? Well I guess we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”

Trannis turned around and walked towards him.

0-0-0

And so Prowl waited. He had deprived Trannis of a bondmate and so he would act as a bondmate until Trannis found another. 

He had no illusions that Trannis would not try to hack him either during or after their “bonding night.” He was carefully partitioning sensitive information for quick deletion. He had already deleted the memory of where Fender and Ebonite were going, as well as the new name she’d taken.

He has no illusions that he would not be violently used every night until he found a way to escape or end it all.

It had been a very long time since Former Enforcer Prowl of Praxus had been able to entertain any illusions about other bots.

The door to the cell clanged open and Prowl leapt back until he hit the wall. Fire danced through the wiring up and down he gouges and the crushed shoulder from before ached anew.

“Congradulations, Monochrome,” came the slimely voice of Trannis. “Someone wants you more than I do.”

“What?” Prowl desperately wished the fog of pain and low fuel would abate, if only for a moment for him to get his bearings.

“Your debt to me has been bought. Have you heard of Meister?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kinda turned the idea of 'scandal-induced marriage' around for this one. Traditionally it means that two people were alone together and someone has to marry the girl to save her honor. Trannis accused Prowl of being with Balewing, but instead of marriage to avoid the scandal of pre-marital sex, it's marriage to avoid the scandal of being cuckolded or 'robbed.' And there's the hero to swoop in at the end and save Prowl's honor. 
> 
> Also, Trannis is just a name. I have no experience with the character and I needed a bit-part villain. Same with Balewing. Mostly I just liked the funny quote from Blake7 they used for her picture on the Wiki.
> 
> I really enjoyed this one! It might be something I clean up and repost as a story if it gets long enough. I did several things that I thought were very clever.


	6. First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz just wants to dance, but everybot he meets on the dance floor seems to want more. Then he meets someone who wants to move to his tempo instead of changing it.

“I wanna dance wit’ you.” Most of Jazz’s troubles started with that phrase or a variation, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Not anymore than he could stop venting or his spark from spinning. 

Jazz loved everything.

Jazz loved the world against his plating. He loved the chill of deep space as he rocketed through it, glued to the outside of a shuttle and the heat of factory engines when he was snuggled down deep in the planet’s core doing reconnaissance.

He liked the pings and sparks from his chemical sensors when they picked up new scents in the atmosphere. He adored analyzing the delicate atomic structure of helium moving through his vents or the trace particles in his morning energon. He didn’t understand his friends – how could you ever get bored of plain energon when each cube was oh so tantalizingly different?

What use was recharge if it prevented you from seeing the neon that lit up the cities during the energy conserving darkcycles? Each tiny swirl lead to a bigger picture – the Crystal Gardens, the Iacon library - and then back down to a tiny shop on the corner with one thin strip of yellow out front to keep late night drivers from veering off the road and into the storefront.

But what he loved most of all was sound. Low tones as round as a mercury droplet, high pitched notes that zigzagged across your processor, rhythms that shook your frame like a cityformer’s steps, and bursts of sound as light and high as bubbles. Sound connected to every part of him – right down to the tiniest bolts.

The first time he’d been in a dance club was something beyond words. Lights, drinks, plating brushing against his, and the ever present thrum of music. 

Jazz was delighted.

“Come on!” he shouted to his classmates. It had been a dare. A bit of fun before their last year of schooling. Sneak into a club and dance with the older bots. They’d been fine until they’d reached the edge of the dance floor. Blurr and Cliffjumper had both disappeared out a side door. Moonracer had looked like she was rethinking their adventure.

“It’s a little loud, isn’t it?” she said, moving backwards, Arcee and Windcharger going with her.

“Isn’t it great?” Jazz dove into the tangle of frames without waiting for them.

(Later he’d learn that this moment had been when they’d bolted. Of all his friends, only Blurr ever joined him at a club again. The rest claimed they were scarred for life.)

Jazz slithered through the masses. An arm reached out and pulled him in close, hip to hip, for a song, the femme laughing and stumbling.

“Thanks! You’re the only one my height!” she had laughed when the song changed, releasing him to another partner.

He danced with another femme, then a mech, then two mechs at once. Each one was tantalizingly different, their movement varied between wild and controlled. He matched them, changing his tempo and feeling his spark pick up each new beat until he felt seamless with the world.

Then a slower song came on and he bumped into a mech with black and white paint and a smirk.

“Hey, you gonna share that with everyone?” he asked, his hands sinking low on Jazz’s hips and pulling him close.

“Yep!” Jazz replied, twining around the mech and feeling his spark pick up this new tune.

“That’s good. I like a generous mech.” His hands trailed over Jazz’s plating. Jazz smiled at him, but he was starting to feel uneasy.

“I like dancin’,” Jazz replied, shifting to keep the mech’s hands on his hips. They kept slipping up and down over his waist and down his thighs. A twitch of his hips knocked one back into place but the other was going down over his aft!

“Ah, careful there,” he tried to laugh it off, “yer hand’s slippin’ outta place.” 

The mech leaned in.

“Oh, is it? Where would you like it to slip?” The heat of his vents washing over Jazz was too hot and too close. The touch wasn’t pleasant anymore. This mech was turning into a real aft-head.

“I wan’ it on my hip where it’s supposed ta be,” Jazz said, backing up.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s where you want it. You’re such a sweet tease.” Both hands moved at once and –

SMACK!

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Another mech was grabbing him by the arm to keep him from falling. “I am so clumsy! Let me get out of your way!” He kept hold of Jazz and pulled him into the crowd. 

Jazz stumbled after him – he was big and blocky, an older model, but he’d customized his frame with more modern paint and a few pinstripes. He moved with the crowd instead of splitting it with his size until they were off the floor.

The mech steered him to the bar and ordered two “Ratchet Specials” before lifting him onto a stool.

“Alright, so, first time sneaking into a club?” 

“I-I-no! I’m just a little over heated!” he protested. He leaned casually on the bar, trying to keep an eye on the mech hands and the dance floor for The Aft-Head. His elbow slipped and he nearly tumbled off.

The mech laughed.

“Oh, trust me, kid, you weren’t the one getting ‘over heated.’” He handed Jazz a bubbling concoction that looked incredibly strong. He tried to fake a sip – no way was he getting over-charged tonight too! – but recognized the drink as he brought it to his mouth.

“This is Ener-punch! Kids drink this!” He took a sip. There wasn’t a drop of high grade in it.

“My friend Ratchet used to come here when he was in med school. Couldn’t get drunk before an operation so he started asking for mock-ups. Here a “Ratchet Special” is whatever the bartender is using for mixes without the high grade. Remember that if you ever want to out-drink your friends.” He winked. “So tell me about tonight. How’d you get to dancing with Barricade?”

“Is that his name? I’m calling him Aft-Head.” Jazz clutched his drink closer. The familiar taste of overly sweetened energon and dyes was soothing.

“That sounds about right. I take it you weren’t looking to score tonight?”

“Score?”

“You didn’t want to interface with him?”

Jazz felt all the energon leave his fuel pump and plummet to his pedes. He’d never been so embarrassed in his life.

“That’s what he thought I wanted? But I- I – why?” 

“Pretty young bot moving through the crowd, touching everyone and letting them touch – some bots read too much into that and some glitches think that means they’re being offered something they’re not.”

“I was jus’ dancin’ wit’ them,” Jazz said. He felt so lost. It had been so much fun! He’d felt, well, drunk on the sensations, like he was a nitrogen tank under pressure and ready to pop.

“And most of the bots understood that. Don’t stop dancing just because of people like Barricade.”

“Okay.”

“Here’s my advice – flit from one partner to the next so none of them think you’re coming on to them. Sit out the slow songs or dance with a friend. It’s not right what Aft-Head said, you’re not a tease, but some mechs don’t think with their processor when their revved up.”

Jazz had nodded and stayed at the bar to finish his drink. The mech had walked him out.

It had taken Jazz only a few cycles before he snuck into another club. He’d made mistakes. Many bots had called him a tease or shareware, but he’d also met friends and bots like him that just wanted to dance.

Everything had been fine until a Thank Primus We’re Not All Dead party at the beginning of the war.

Jazz had mastered the art of dancing, chatting, and flirting without offering anything more. Aside from the odd aft-head, he hadn’t had any problems.

Until he’d seen a mech (oddly, also with black and white paint) looking so awkward as he tried to dance that Jazz actually winced.

“You can do it, Commander! Just step like –no, not like that – here hold my –“

“May I step in?” Jazz asked, already sliding his servo into place and pushing out the enthusiastic, but inept ‘helper.’

“Yes!” the helper shouted, backing away, but trying to look positive. “I’m just not, um, a dance teacher.”

“Lucky for you,” Jazz purred as he looked at those startled blue optics, “I am. Wanna dance wit’ me?”

“Yes.” The mech said it like he was signing up for a torture session.

It wasn’t quite torture. The mech – whose name was Prowl – was incapable of moving gracefully across the floor or of any improvisation whatsoever. He could keep a beat and copy Jazz though, so it wasn’t a total loss.

The real delight had been discovering Prowl’s biting and subtle sense of humor. He directed it mostly at himself, but he’d also found a few things to say about the younger bots who were trying desperately to get overcharged by downing pre-mixed cubes, but hadn’t figured out that the only thing spiked at an office party was always the punch.

Prowl poured Jazz a cup of punch and they leaned against one of the walls. 

“I’ve been told by partners in the past that dancing is like interfacing. I cannot imagine doing any of this in the berth.” Prowl waved a hand at the bots twirling around the dance floor. “Or that.” He pointed to where Blaster was completely ignoring the song (probably playing his own music in his helm) and doing a very complicate and high structured dance that involved moving all his joints at right angles in rapid succession.

“No,” Jazz laughed, “I’ve never really believed in that “moves on the dance floor equals moves in the berth” stuff.”

“You are an excellent dancer. Thank you for putting up with me.”

“Ah, wasn’t that bad. I’d love to dance wit’ ya again.” He watched a slow, shy and seductive smile stretch over Prowl’s face. He could fall in love with that smile. Then he got a ping. A private commlink number.

_“I would love to dance with you again as well.”_

Jazz never tried to tempt Prowl into a club, but they went into little cafes where there would always be a few couples swaying late in the dark cycle to old music. Before the war made them impossible, festivals were a good compromise. They gave Prowl enough room so that he didn’t feel claustrophobic, but the sounds were louder and faster and the press of bodies made Jazz giddy with excitement.

Sometimes Prowl watched as Jazz moved from dancer to dancer, always looking back to Prowl, his pillar of stability and love.

In the time it took the war to go from skirmishes and subtle political maneuvers to open warfare Jazz and Prowl had been on hundreds of dates and never voiced their feelings.

Then, while sprawled out on Prowl’s couch, the night before war was officially declared, Jazz kissed Prowl.

Prowl looked startled. Jazz looked astonished.

“Jazz?”

“I never kissed anybot ‘afore.” Prowl took his face between his servos.

“Did you like it?”

“Yes.” It was liked the final crescendo, the part just before Prowl would lift him up and twirl him across the floor.

Prowl leaned in, one hand stroking down, but Jazz caught it.

“I-ah-I jus’ like dancing’, okay?” 

“Dancing and kissing?” Prowl gently rested his wrists on Jazz’s shoulders, as if they were swaying in one of their cafés.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Prowl leaned in, keeping his arms up, and kissed Jazz again. “Play us something, Jazz. I want to dance with you.”

Jazz trembled. He opened a comm channel and started to play one of the old, old songs, from before even Kup’s time. Everything moved slowly back then.

There, the darkcycle before the end of Cybertron had begun, before Praxus fell, Jazz and Prowl danced.

It wasn’t until they were both on Earth that Jazz got curious.

Humans had an amazing range of relationships. The people they interfaced with could be determined by their location, age, time of day, culture, and gender. And only half the world seemed to follow those rules, only a quarter of which were explicit – the rest inferred with looks and body language.

And Jazz began to wonder what interfacing with Prowl would be like.

He’d watched enough holovids to know that the real stuff wasn’t in them.

And now that things had quieted down his mind was spinning. It was a part of his soulmate that he didn’t know. 

And he was curious.

So he waited until Prowl had some evenings off coming up and walked into his office at his midcycle break.

“I have a question for ya,” he announced as he walked over to the spare chair. He arranged himself artfully in it. Just because he’d never felt the desire to interface didn’t mean he didn’t understand what bots found desirable. It had been one more tool in his box for SpecOps.

“You want to go dancing tonight?” Prowl asked, voice low and intense. 

“I wanna try interfacin’.”

“Oh.” Prowl blinked and his body lost its edge of tension. “Can I ask what brought this on?”

“Well I love you and I don’t know how you interface.”

“You know how I dance.” There was a smirk at the reminder of their first meeting.

“Don’t mean anything. We’ve been spinnin’ our wheels with nothing ta do and I was watching the humans and they seemed ta be having fun so I thought, maybe we should try it.”

“So you are bored. You saw someone else was having fun and got jealous. And now you want to interface. Jazz, the romance of this moment is priceless.” Prowl softened the edges of his joke with a soft kiss.

“So ya wanna try?”

“Yes.” There was excitement in Prowl’s voice that did wonderful things to Jazz’s spark.

Later that darkcycle Prowl knocked on Jazz’s door and neither answered their comms for a very long time.

“So?” Prowl wrapped himself around Jazz more snuggly. Jazz thought they should interface purely for how cuddly Prowl became afterwards.

“I liked it.” And he had. He liked feeling Prowl pressed close to him. He liked hearing Prowl’s voice change from husky to breathless to high pitched. Jazz had recorded some of those words to replay over and over again.

He was sure he wasn’t doing it the ‘right way.’ It hadn’t been anything like what his friends had described or what the holovids or stories showed. It hadn’t been the same for him as it was for Prowl. 

“Will you want to do it again?”

“Yep. Not as good as dancing, but definitely worth a repeat.” He tucked his head into a dip and snuggled. Definitely worth a repeat.

“Well nothing’s as good as dancing with you, Jazz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm working on the next chapters of Amnesia, Secret Baby, and Scandal-Induced Marriage. This popped up first. Completely unedited!


	7. Something Smolders/Free Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is captured and then broken out by a fellow prisoner who just happens to turn into a dragon. A dragon who wants to carry him around and likes to snuggle. Is Jazz a meal or a prize?

Something Smolders

The mech was something else. Jazz might be moments away from execution by a crazy warlord (he was working on that), but at least he was going to get a good view before the end. Even the cracked optic didn’t detract from it. It meant he could look at 31 images of the mech instead of just one. And at slightly different angles too!

In contrast to Jazz’s small, curvy design, this mech was all solid lines and sharp corners. Except, Jazz noted with appreciation, for the delicious curve of his front bumper. He was nearly a straight line from shoulder to pede and easily half against as tall as Jazz.

 _A good, solid surface to plaster yourself_. Jazz shifted uncomfortably as their jailer dragged the mech over to the stasis cuffs anchored to the wall. The ones right next to Jazz.

Was it wrong to fantasize about those strong, rigid thighs if they belonged to a condemned mech? He should be able to enjoy his last minute of functioning however he wanted, shouldn’t he? And if the mech wanted to look at him – recently shined and repainted a deep cream and blue-flecked black for this cover – Jazz wasn’t going to protest.

“Damn, you’re dense,” the jailer (called himself Axle-breaker quite proudly and was not amused when Jazz changed it to Aft-breather, hence the cracked optic) said as he slammed the cuffs around this new mech’s wrist. “This is twice the output I need for mechs your size. What, are you actually made of osmium?” Aft-breather laughed at his own joke.

The mech was silent, head bowed and optics shut.

“Hey, hey, little rebel.” Aft-breather struck the mech across the face, sudden and cruel, cracking something and opening an energon line. 

“Hey, look at me.” Aft-breather didn’t stop until the mech raised his head. “You’re gonna die today.”

Then, still cackling, the jailer left.

“Um, you okay, mech?” Jazz called over when the mech didn’t move. I’ve almost got something of a plan to get us out, he wanted to say, but didn’t. There was still a chance that this hunk of hotness was a trap.

And Jazz would be thrilled to fall right into it if –

No! Bad Jazz. Focus.

“The fragger slagged my optic too. Are you okay otherwise?” he tried again. The mech seemed to be venting heavily, dispersing heat into their tiny, round cell.

Jazz’s report, when he finally got around to writing it would say this about the cell: it was round, small, in the center of the merchant-turned-warlord’s compound, and just big enough that Jazz couldn’t reach out and stroke that gorgeous slab of cybertronium. It was just big enough that, while he could see the other mech, he couldn’t clearly see his face.

“I am fine,” came a voice as smooth and rich as the pour of hot gold from a crucible. “I do not have time. You are one of Ironhide’s agents?”

Whoops. 

“Maaaaaybe,” Jazz drawled. “Who are you?”

“I am the Right Servo.”

“Oh.” Oh. So this was the messenger from the Prime that they were expecting.

“I will get us out, but you must not be afraid. We only have a few kliks more before Gouge arrives and realizes who I am.” The mech took a deeper vent and ex-vented through his mouth. Jazz would swear the superheated air was enough to bubble paint. “He will realize why these cuffs do not hold me.”

“Okay, let’s slow down here. We don’t want to run off half –“ Jazz started, worried now. A panicked amateur plan could get both of them offlined before Jazz even had time to explain why it was a bad idea.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more time to explain. Don’t be afraid. We will contact Optimus and Ironhide in the lightcycle.”

“Hey, hey mech, wait, look at me -!” Jazz tried to get his attention, tried to get him to explain, but this time, when the mech looked up, his optics were a solid black.

“It will be all right –“ the mech croaked. His voice clattered into static and Jazz realized it must have been a result of the vocalizer itself transforming. The next sounds were not any that came from the mouth of a mech.

The cuffs shattered as a roar built and echoed from the body now writhing on the floor. It was a transformation sequence, but instead of just changing shape, the mech was changing his size. Every time a part rearranged itself, it seemed to triple in size and bring forth another section of plate, another thick band of cable and wire.

It was like watching a mountain unfolding.

The creature grew and in a moment it was going to be too big to fit in the room. It was already dangerously close to crushing Jazz who was trying very hard to focus on not getting crushed.

When it’s back (shoulder? Head?) brushed the roof it slowed. A hand reached out and doubled, then tripled in size. It grew five long talons and each one curved over Jazz’s head, moving and cutting down through the metal wall like energon jelly. They carved Jazz away from the wall and pulled him close to stand under the enormous mass of the beast. Jazz dropped to the ground, his cuffed wrists still embedded in a chunk of the wall.

Then it stood up. The walls, ceiling, and surrounding structure tried to stand up with it.

Whole sections of roof and building crashed around him and all Jazz could do was huddle and try to avoid the falling chunks. Then, once the crashing had stopped, Jazz looked up to realize he was crouching by the leg of an enormous dragon. The kind from ancient data pads and temple walls.

It was easily twice as tall as the room they’d been in and so long that it could have stretched between the towers of the Iacon library, tip to tail. It had the same, square, solid body of the mech in blinding white and faded black with equally thick black and white legs. The red chevron remained the only color on it anywhere.

And it was turning and lowering its head to look at him. That wide head could have swallowed him whole and the mouth was lined with crystal clear, very sharp, teeth.

“Um, hi again,” Jazz said, raising a hand. The mech was the right servo of the Prime and he’d said repeatedly not to be afraid. “Do you have a plan for –“

The dragon bent forward and caught the edges of his back plating in its teeth. Then Jazz was screaming as the world fell away sharply and he was looking at newly destroyed compound from way to high up.

Below them bots ran. Some came running and then turned around again when they saw the dragon. A few tried to shoot it. Jazz wished he was low enough to see the look on their faces when they realized they weren’t running towards a nice safe bomb or building collapse.

The dragon gave them no mind. It stepped over the many walls that had once made up a bustling marketplace and broke through the shoddily built ones on the edges where “Lord” Gouge had been trying to expand his “territory.” By the third wall Jazz stopped seeing any bots at all. 

He would have also liked to know what they were screaming over the comms to each other, but he was too far out of range to hack personal comms. He imagined it went something like “The beasts of the underworld have risen! Fear all sinners!” but it was probably more “Frag frag fraggity frag! We’re gonna die!”

Jazz was not panicking. Panicking was for new recruits that hadn’t learned to roll with the punches. And as long as he didn’t look down he could forget that he was dangling in the air and being buffeted by the winds. And if he ignored the rumbling growl coming from behind him, he could pretend he wasn’t being held in a dragon’s teeth.

They finally came to the outer wall, the first and strongest barrier around the city-town of the Market. It was too solid to break and too tall to just step over. The dragon stopped and started to carefully wiggle himself over the top of the wall.

Jazz was not so afraid that he didn’t laugh at the careful way the dragon was lifting each pillar like leg and placing it on the other side. He screamed a little, as the dragon shifted its weight and he was swung over, but only a little. Anyone who said otherwise was a dirty slagging liar.

Then the forest swallowed them up, because even a dragon was dwarfed by the Obsidian Forest.

0-0-0

Jazz tolerated being carried like a helpless sparkling for approximately half a klik once they were safely away from the compound.

“Okay, my mech, ya can put me down.” Jazz waited. Did it still understand speech? “Where are we going? I thought you said we could contact our superiors? Base camp is that way!” Nothing, but a dismissive shake to shut him up.

“Down, Snappy, now!” He wiggled and the dragon stopped walking. Progress! It growled low and threatening, but Jazz had never been good at listening to threats, warnings, or cautions. 

“Lemme go!” The dragon only continued to growl. Jazz kept struggling, trying to provoke a reaction, any reaction that would get him released. He could try running. In the dark he would be hard to spot.

The growl intensified and heat licked at him from behind. The jaws tightened. The first few strands of fear stabbed at him. He wiggled again and the dragon shook him, sharp teeth catching on a gap in his plating. 

Jazz saw the rivet of fluid down his arm before he felt the pain of the cut line. He watch the drops fall and splatter against the ground.

Then Jazz thrashed like he was being electrocuted, feeling his back plates bend and twist uncomfortably. If the Prime’s Right Servo was going to turn into a giant dragon and eat him then he wasn’t going to wait around for –

His pedes touched the ground and then he was released in a heap on the forest floor. For a second he held still, venting stirring the silicon sand and aluminum leaves. A few shards dropped from a nearby crystal were digging into his face. Then he flipped over to look the creature in the eye.

Aha! Jazz met the beast’s eyes and saw –

Concern.

It made a low sound, rising and falling in little hitches. Then it settled onto the ground and laid its massive head next to Jazz. It made the sound again and nudged him. When he didn’t reaction it tried again, using its claws to pull itself the tiniest bit closer, leaving giant gouges in the metal of the forest floor.

An alien feeling pressed against him from all sides. It took him awhile to identify it.

It was the dragon’s field and it was full of concern and worry. It nudged him again.

Jazz just stared. Fields were…ancient. Most mechs could still generate one, but the power needed – minute as it was – was seen as wasted. Fields were from before they’d had language when vocalizers were primitive things used for warnings.

The smooth metal of its nose touched his shoulder again. That sound…it was the same sound Ironhide’s sparkling made when he was sad. A whimper, scaled up a hundred times, but a whimper nonetheless. And the nudging. Like little Bee lifting his arms and pressing against Jazz’s legs when he wanted to be picked up and held.

Tentatively, waiting to be snapped at, Jazz wrapped himself around the dragon’s head.

Its field exploded across Jazz with affection and giddy joy. A tongue slipped out and tickled across his plating. Jazz slumped against it, letting the feelings seep into him and calm his spark. He idly let his hands wander, stroking over the ridges and hills of the dragon’s head. Deep satisfaction saturated its field, like dropping navy dye into a solution. 

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

When it finally lifted itself off the ground (incredibly slowly, the amount of effort it was putting into not scaring Jazz was amusing and achingly sweet) Jazz stood as well. Telegraphing its movement it slowly lowered its head and grasped Jazz again, this time most solidly around the middle - less like a turbofox carrying a kit and more like a cyberhound carrying a fetching rod. Then they started off again, a touch faster, bathed in the dragon’s field.

“Ah am NOT a trophy!”

Jazz didn’t need the dragon’s field to know how it felt. The jaunty prance and the way it held its head broadcast ‘happy,’ ‘proud,’ and ‘success’ louder than a Kaon rave as it carried him like a prize. Was he a bounty or a friend? He wasn’t an enemy – at least Jazz didn’t think the snuggling and the whimpering would be directed at an enemy prisoner.

He suffered being carried and shown off to the empty forest until they reached a cave. Of course the dragon would live in one of the old access tunnels. Was there a creepier place on Cybertron?

They entered the cave and the light winked out. The path was climbing so sharply that the dragon was half clawing its way upwards to keep from sliding back. Being held in a dragon’s mouth had stopped being terrifying somewhere around the third time the dragon set him down to gently lick and nuzzle him, but being in a dragon’s mouth while it SCALED THE INSIDE OF A MOUNTIAN was a different sort of terror.

“Ya know, I could help,” Jazz grumbled to distract himself. “I go’ magnets in my servos. Could pull my own weight if you put me down.” The dragon just chirped happily and climbed faster. “Can’t wai’ ta ge’ ya new toy home?”

The darkness was so complete that his visor couldn’t get anything beyond a basic sense of size. He could tell when they came to a fork and that they took the left path. They started leveling off and finally the scrap of claws digging into metal turned to a click clack on a level surface.

“I kin see why ya don’ have many visitors,” Jazz said as he dangled. He could hear something now. The splashing of liquid.

There were six different kinds of river on Cybertron and Jazz had falled, at one time or another, into each of them. His preferred river was energon or one of the few gallium ones, but the best kind was –

“An oil spring!” Jazz could smell it now, the thick, bland scent of a natural oil spring. He wiggled a bit hoping to be released and to his surprise the dragon set him gently on the ground. He leaned against its broad, flat cheek for a moment while his jelly legs started to work again. Then it stepped forwards and stood at the edge of the spring. Somewhere up high there were glowing crystals that cast a low light, enough to see outlines. The chamber was only big enough to hold the spring, which was as wide as the dragon itself.

The dragon chirped encouragingly to him and slowly waded in. It had to be deep. Jazz hesitated.

Usually a deep spring just meant that he had to be careful to stay at the edges, but the lack of light meant Jazz couldn’t tell where the drop off would be. And springs could go deep, right down to the lower levels. With his magnets he could crawl up, but by the time he made it to the surface he might have flooded his vents and overheated.

The dragon was now fully immersed and its great wings floated gently on top of the inky blackness of the oil spring. It chirped again and lowered its head until it touched the surface of the oil. Another encouraging chirp and a happy growl.

He wanted to be in that bath. He wanted to get the oil under every bit of plating and feel the heat uncoil his cables.

He’d risk it.

He took a tentative step into the pool and the dragon edged its head nearer. Jazz put a hand on it and used it as a guide towards the deeper oil. Once he was up to his helm he relaxed and rested against its neck.

The oil was making its way through every crease and Jazz shook himself to swish it through his joints and under his plating.

This was bliss.

0-0-0

Getting Jazz out of the oil spring was far more work than getting him in. Jazz didn’t envy the dragon as he tried to pry Jazz off the bottom. 

He had magnets in his pedes as well. 

Eventually he did get Jazz out and carried him, still dripping slightly and limp, back to the fork in the road. This time they went right and walked into a much larger chamber. Jazz was lowered onto something incredibly soft and slick. The dragon curled up around him and rumbled soothingly and wrapping his field around him again.

Something was pressed into his hands and he held it up. A very fine and delicate harp, the highest notes were made with the thinnest wire Jazz had ever felt. He strummed it softly. The field brightened with happiness. The dragon leaned away and grabbed something else with its teeth. It was leaned against Jazz and he lifted that too. He turned his visor to the highest glow setting. It was an ancient and ornate data pad. A large carved crystal, cool and smooth as oil, was placed in his palm. How the beast had lifted it without breaking or swallowing it was amazing.

Perhaps that was where it learned how to lift Jazz without breaking or swallowing him.

Once each item had been handled and appreciated Jazz was lifted higher and settled between the dragons front legs. It lowered its head until it covered Jazz from chin to pede.

Already tired, cushioned and warmed, Jazz fell into recharge.

0-0-0

Jazz stirred and pressed closer to the solid warmth beside him. Something was draped over him – a doorwing? – and an arm was curved around his waist. He was so comfortable. He moved up the other bot until he found a helm and snuggled his face into the underside of a chin. The bot shifted and groaned. Jazz beeped contentedly, letting them know he didn’t want to move…

“Oh Primus!” 

The bot jerked and Jazz tumbled away his hands scrambling for purchase on what seemed like a hundred meshes.

“Oh Primus!” the voice shouted again, the pitched several octaves higher. The mesh sea shifted and Jazz opened his blurry optics to see a strong featured, white and black face staring down at him.

“Hi.” The events of the nightcycle came back to him. There were a hundred very important questions he needed to ask – about what he was, about where they were, and about contacting their superiors. What he asked instead was, “Ken we ge’ a few more kliks a ‘charge ‘fore we call ‘Hide and ‘Op’mis?”

The mech blinked.

“I will get us energon,” he stated and pushed himself up, sliding down the mountain of mesh. Jazz heard him open a door his footsteps fading.

He sat up and looked around. A few glowing crystals and a narrow skylight illuminated the room.

Now he could actually see what he was laying in. To his amusement most of the meshes were actually wrapping. Loud, bright, shiny logos screamed out from half of them while the other had the subtle glitter of high priced packaging used with custom crystal arrangements. Only a few were actual thermal meshes or thin berth cushions.

Jazz turned on his headlights. There was an abundance of potted crystals and shiny aluminum plants in growth mixtures that reflected his lights. Along the walls someone had arranged large sheets of highly polished metal and blocks of colored glass as tall as Jazz. Even with just the skylight, the glow from the crystals, and his headlights the large chamber was glittering like a star field.

The door opened again and the mech shuffled in balancing two full cubes.

“I fully apologize for my behavior,” he blurted, climbing back up handing Jazz one of the cubes far more gracefully than Jazz could have managed. “My intent was never to assault and harass you like that. I had thought I would just take us both to here and wait for morning. I was forceful and inappropriately familiar. I-“

“My name is Jazz. What’s yours?” Jazz interrupted. The mech stopped, startled.

“Prowl.”

“Nice ta meet ya Prowl. Wanna share why your ‘intent’ changed to carrying me around like a turbofox kit?”

“Well, ah.” Prowl looked down and Jazz saw his hands gripping the edge of one of the mech blankets. “In…my kind, having shiny things is very important. It might be something to do with attracting partners…? Wheeljack has theorized that we started developing the hoarding code because we typically nest near the planet’s vents and a shiny nest is easier to see through smoke. From there we started preferring mates that were shiny and –“

Jazz let him speak. He has quickly fallen into a unfamiliar, but recognizable “report” cadence – just as if he was reporting the mission instead of why he’d botnapped Jazz. 

“I determined that your character was a compliment to my own and in my altered state I tried to – that is – I showed you my possessions and my oil spring and -

Having gotten the gist, Jazz interrupted.

“So, ya broke us outta jail and kept an eye on me because ya still knew, on some level, who I was, but ya brought me back here and put me with all yer treasures because I’m shiny?” Prowl buried his face in his servos and nodded. “And ya snuggled up and gave me treats because ya _like_ me?” Prowl nodded again.

“Well,” Jazz scooted closer, “I can work wit’ that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, still not a continuation. That is because all three of those fics have exactly 1/2 of the next chapter written and I keep bouncing between them trying to decide which one gets finished first. I'm so glad you guys liked the last chapter! I was so sure no one would be interested in my sexy not-really-into-sex Jazz. So here I am having a go at a Jazz drooling over Prowl. What would a robot find attractive? 
> 
> I've read a lot of great dragon/shifter AUs but not the one I wanted most, so I wrote it. I've got three fics with the hurt part of the hurt/comfort and for something title "Fluff Bingo" there isn't nearly enough fluff. So this is all fluff. Toasted marshmallow fluff. I really want to go back and edit and fix it, but if I do that I won't get it posted forever and I won't be able to work on the others so here it is! I want more dialogue and less world building. I just can't help it. The river questions had me doing twenty minutes of research to find what kinds of liquids would be on an all metal/plastic planet.
> 
> Also I've been having a difficult couple of weeks and I figured maybe some of you were having a hard week too and this might cheer you up. :)


	8. Amnesia 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pudding thickens...

“Okay, but who’s going to go in and calm down Groove? Because he’s panicking and I don’t think he’s ever panicked before and that’s panicking him more.”

“Isn’t that how panic works?”

“No, Red Alert, not usually,” said Optimus carefully. He turned back to Hot Spot. “And none of you thought it was strange that your brother was missing three days of his memory?”

“No. That’s what it was like when First Aid and Streetwise were captured,” said Hot Shot looked very confused.

“What?!” Ratchet burst out.

“Yeah. A while ago, before the big battle in Tarn, they went missing and we found them in one of the sub-basements.” Everyone stared at him. “They didn’t remember anything either. We went and reported to medical and Spec Ops. They just made sure we were fit to go back into battle and since First Aid and Streetwise weren’t hurt…”

And that was how the entire Protectobot gestalt ended up in a locked room and under observation. 

Red Alert was keeping an eye on them as the meeting continued. He had started hand selecting people to interview the entire base about missing time while the others rambled.

BECAUSE THEY WERE IDIOTS. 

WHO WENT AROUND ASSUMING MEMORY WIPES WERE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE. 

Optimus reminded everyone that the Protectobots were very young. 

On the camera they were all piled together in one berth, Groove blanketed by three of his brothers, and Red Alert grudgingly admitted that they did look like a pile of recharging sparklings. He started flicking through the security feeds on the other bots in lock down.

“Ratchet, it would be a good idea to –“

“I’ve already commed all the medics working that day. Apparently they drain all their processing power into one big vat when I’m not around and not a single one thought it was odd that two mechs came in with missing memories and possible enemy tampering.” He vented heatedly and those closest to him leaned away slightly. “I just accessed their files and both are down as “helm injury resulting in memory disruption.” A fine diagnosis that I am going to demonstrate once I get back to the medbay.”

Optimus looked like he wanted to lay a calming hand on Ratchet and then thought better of it. Red Alert approved of this decision. Optimus turned instead to Moonracer’s mentor.

“Arcee, how is Moonracer?”

Red Alert doubled back through the feeds, “She is pacing the room with her datapad trying to access her vid account to watch _Sanctuary Moon_. Apparently there’s a new episode out.”

They looked at him. They turned back to her.

“She’s very unsettled,” Arcee answered. The audience nodded. One of them accessed their vid account under the briefing table.

“-because apparently they’re giving anyone a medical degree nowadays –“

“I have been in contact with Prowl and he is analyzing the situation as best he can as one of the victims of this memory tampering. He isn’t one to panic.”

“Only if he has to socialize,” Ironhide muttered. “Calm down, Ratchet,” he said louder.

“Easy for you to say! They’re sending me your recruits instead of my trainees!” Ratchet, Red Alert had noticed, tended to take injuries as a personal and deliberate insult.

“And what are you saying about my recruits?” Ironhide, on the other hand, took everything as a personal and deliberate insult. Possibly just to increase the number of casual brawls he got into on a weekly basis.

“Nothing I haven’t said before!” They both looked furious.

“Oh yeah? And what about Medbay? While I’m running out of ammunition your department is buying, what was that? A third virus scanner because you can’t –“

“Ratchet! Ironhide!” Optimus was standing now and both mechs immediately shrunk back. “I understand that this situation is uniquely stressful for some of us,” he looked meaningfully at Ratchet, “But if you cannot conduct yourselves like the Commander and Chief Medical Officer that you are, then please leave until you are able.”

They nodded. 

“Thank you. Let us continue.”

They sat.

“It’s not,” Red Alert said before he could stop himself. Optimus looked at him oddly.

“What was that Red Alert?”

“The budget for Medical is actually lower than the budget for frontline ammunitions.”

The room went silent.

Ratchet froze.

“Ratchet…” Optimus began.

 _“Hey, Prime, is Ratchet with you?”_ The voice of Hoist came on over the speakers. Optimus lunged across the table and flipped the switch for the intercom a touch too quickly to be dignified.

“Yes,” he answered. 

_“Good. I guess you all didn’t hear the chatter since you’re in your meeting, but we had a couple of bots brought in – some runaway Decepticons and a few neutrals. We were hoping he’d come down and look them over.”_

“Is it serious,” Ratchet spat, eyes locked on Ironhide, who actually looked contrite for once.

_“Maybe. One of the neutrals looks like he’s got a virus and some of the Decepticons have some serious corrosion. Other than that it’s a dented helm, a crushed servo, and a cracked optic. Can you come?”_

“I’ll be there in a klik.” Ratchet reached over and flipped the switch. “Don’t think this gets you off the hook,” he hissed at Ironhide. “You, me, and the quartermaster are going to have a talk about allotment of resources.” Red Alert did not envy Seaspray.

He left and took a quarter of the tension with him.

“So,” Optimus continued, “where were we…”

0-0-0

Prowl was feeling both vindicated and annoyed. On the one he’d told them that something was wrong, on the other HE’D TOLD THEM THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG. 

He was the best tactician on base, but not the highest ranking. Which, he surmised, was a good example of what was wrong with the Autobot command structure. 

He indulged – briefly – in the dream of being the head of his department like he had been before in the tiny Autobot base next to the ruins of Praxus. He would force everyone to go through the right channels and complete their paperwork on time. Just as he was imagining forcing that femme from SpecOps to repeat her training for the third time and alert pulled him from his thoughts.

Arcee was comming him.

“Yes?”

“Have you discovered anything yet?” Even over an internal commlink Prowl could hear her suppressed anxiety. “I know you’re on lockdown too, but if anyone will solve this it’ll be you.”

Prowl felt his spark spin just that bit slower and warmer. Arcee had been one of the bots to come with him from that tiny Autobot base. Tight quarters and Decepticons on the doorstep had forged friends out of the unlikeliest bots – femmes like Arcee and mechs like him.

“Nothing more yet, but I’m waiting on more data from Red Alert. He’s going to be questioning everyone since he’s the only one we can guarantee is not compromised. How is the meeting going?”

“Oh, same old. Ratchet is still bitter about funding for medical. Ironhide is being an aft. Red Alert is picking up on precisely zero social cues.”

“He means well,” Prowl replied. “He spends too much time in his own processor and needs some reminding. Ironhide is worried because he sees Hot Rod as a surrogate sparkling and he doesn’t handle worry well.”

“Neither does half the command staff. They’re wound up. We can power a thousand chronometers with the mechanical energy when this meeting ends.”

“And you?” he asked gently.

“Can’t hide from you, can I? Slagging tactician. I’m worried about Moonracer. She’s young and she’s already damaged. Growing up like she did left her processor prone to random data dumps. She’s not handling this well.” Arcee grew quiet. “She get angry and then sad. Then the cycle repeats and nothing I say seems to be helping.”

Prowl paused and weighed the pros and cons of sharing his own state of mind.

“I too have been off center. Being able to depend on my own recall and interpretation of events is a cornerstone of my work. To not have that is…disconcerting. I am off balance and I don’t trust myself. If we were allowed contact I would ask to speak with her.”

“Thanks. When this is over I think she’d like that. She’s a bit like you, actually,” Arcee teased. “Probably why I offered to mentor her. Can’t have two secretive, hyper-analytical introverts running around on base.”

“I am not an introvert.”

“No, you’re shy, but I thought you’d prefer the term introvert.”

“I do have some introverted tendencies,” Prowl hurriedly agreed. He needed to remember that Arcee did not pull her punches and knew him well.

“Hmph. We’ll all go out for a drink when this is over.” She said it confidently, like she’d been repeating it to herself.

“That would be – hold on a moment, Arcee, someone else is calling.” He changed to Ratchet’s channel.

“Yes Ratchet? Is there news?”

“There sure is!” chirped the exuberant voice of Ratchet’s apprentice.

“First Aid? What –“

“It’s both of us, Prowl,” Ratchet broke in. “Red Alert, Inferno, and Ironhide are outside your door ready to bring you here.”

“What for?”

“Because the Protectobots remembered something.”

0-0-0

“So we were just chillin’ and I kept trying to remember what I’d forgotten –“ Groove was saying. “And what I’d forgotten was hard to remember because I couldn’t, you know, remember it –“

“Get on with it, Groove!”

“I am! I have to explain it!”

“I can explain it!”

“FIRST AID COME HERE!”

Prowl wished he could take a red stylus to this conversation. Ratchet physically removed First Aid from Prowl’s personal space, but he couldn’t do anything about how Groove and Blades were crowding him on the couch. Streetwise was still being held by Hot Spot in one of the berths beyond the common room.

“Anyways,” Groove continued, “I was thinking and thinking and then First Aid started thinking to because I was thinking so loud –“

“You can hear others think in the gestalt bond?”

“Only if they’re really really loud like motor mouth,” sulked Blades, gesturing so vaguely he could have been including Ironhide outside the door and the energon dispenser. 

“So ANYWAYS, we started thinking together and then Streetwise joined in and even Blades was thinking about it and when Hot Spot finally looked over the bond to see what we were doing – Bam! We have a memory. It’s weird and all, but it’s definitely from the time First Aid and Streetwise were missing,” Groove finished, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Red Alert looked like he wanted to either bolt from the room or climb into Inferno’s lap.

Prowl commed him.

“They are unsettlingly upbeat at first. Give them time to relax and they will be less…”

“Insane?” Red Alert supplied. Prowl could hear his ventilations falling into a meditative pattern.

“Yes.” Aloud he asked, “May I see the memory?”

“Of course!” First Aid rushed to sit beside him on the couch and popped open half a dozen dataports with the trust of a sparkling. Prowl gently plugged in and waited for their processors to sync. He saw Ratchet do the same and felt the brush of his mind as well.

“Show me the memory, please.”

The layers of First Aid’s processor started shifting away and Prowl was plunged downwards until -

_“Who the pit keeps sending you babies into battle?”_

_First Aid snuggled in closer, lifting the warm, rumbling voice closer to his helm. This was soooo nice. Was that him or Streetwise? A hand stroked over his helm and he settled back down. It didn’t really matter anyways._

_He was safe and warm like he’d never been before. Ratchet cared. Optimus cared. Even mechs like Ironhide and the twins cared. It was just that the care was divvied up, spread around, doled out carefully. The war didn’t leave time for things like careless affection._

_The Voice was standing up now - and they didn’t want him to go! Streetwise wrapped himself around the Voice’s legs._

_“Don’ go,” he slurred. “We can still hang. Come back to our place. Meet my brothers.”_

_The Voice leaned down and wrapped him up again in spark-warmth._

_“I’d love ta, darnlin’, but some things are outta my control. You stay safe.” He pulled away and First Aid whined._

_“Not cool!” Streetwise grumbled as a port on his side ticked open._

_“Yeah, yeah, little bit, ‘s nah cool. Sorry.” Another brush against his hand and then ice rushed through him._

Prowl was rising back until he was suddenly thrust back into the room and he onlined his optics. It took him a few moment to re-categorize himself as Prowl and not part of the gestalt bond.

“It’s a spark memory,” Prowl said at last, stumbling slightly from being so deep in a processor and a gestalt processor at that. Ratchet had his elbow and helped him lean back against the couch, unplugging both their data cords from First Aid. “That’s why it seems so strange. The spark only records sensory data with strong emotions attached. That’s why you remember the, ah –“

“Cuddle!” First Aid supplied cheerfully, leaning back next to him and patting Prowl on the shoulder. Ironhide snorted and Inferno pretended not to see.

“-that, but not what Jazz looked like or where you were. 

“But is it implanted too?” Red Alert asked, scribbling furiously on his datapad.

“No. They can’t be reached by hackers – we didn’t even really see the memory. We saw Streetwise and First Aid’s memory of the memory. Spark memories are stored in the spark. They’re actually admissible in court as unquestionable evidence.”

“So if we were to get more of these -?”

“We would be able to determine far more about Jazz than he would probably like us to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning on posting this yet, but heck, you guys know what you're in for: unedited fluff and silliness. I think this chapter will need the heaviest editing to make it more interesting and less all over the place, but it does have its good parts! I adore Prowl alone and friendless, but I really like him having a place among the Autobots too. And Jazz’s job in this story is to be the noble loner who has no friends. Characterization for the Protectobots comes mostly from fanon. Therefore they act more like puppies than robotic warriors ready to do battle and save humanity/the universe. I also really dig the idea of emotional and mental closeness being on the same level as physical and verbal affection. 
> 
> One thing that's been really great has been all your kudos and reviews! Over 100 kudos! So many reviews! They make me so happy!
> 
> I have another two one-shots in the works and a continuation of the marriage scandal story. Fingers crossed I get enough time and energy to post them soon!


	9. Amnesia 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mystery mech arrives! Who ever could it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mention of a suicide watch. This will not be part of the plot. One character is viewed by others as "death seeking" in the next chapter due to their actions.

“I’ve got to get back to medbay now,” Ratchet grumbled. “We were having our new daily seminar “Don’t be a dumbaft” and I was interrupted by First Aid and the need to escort you.”

“Oh?” Prowl asked, he barely knew Ratchet except by reputation. He had no doubt that the seminar was punctuated by loud reminders.

“Yep. Needed someone who could put you or the silly gestalt down if anything strange happened.”

“Then I am grateful. I don’t believe there is any sleeper programing, but I will feel better after we can run a full scan.”

“I agree –“ Ratchet started.

A blur slammed into them, leap up, and kept running.

Then the alarms sounded. Two guards came down the hallway, weapons out.

“The prisoner has escaped! We must –“

Prowl was already running. Had started before the guards had arrived. There were very few reasons why a mech would be running in the hallways and even fewer why they wouldn’t stop after slamming into someone.

Considering one of those two reasons had been speaking with Prowl, it wasn’t a far stretch to assume the mech was doing something the was not supposed to.

He _was_ however much faster than Prowl and Prowl quickly lost visual contact, though the clatter of his pedes was not hard to follow.

Then they stopped. Prowl stopped. They were actually deeper in the base than they had started out. It made the mystery mech’s plan rather obvious, but Prowl was willing to play along. He walked down the hallway, sensors on their highest setting. 

He would have picked a vent or storage place out of reach where Prowl wouldn’t think to look – there! Heat signals, chemical trails, the mech was in the vent. He would be hoping Prowl would continue onwards and give him the chance to double back.

He walked up and stared right at the vent.

“Come out now,” he commanded. “I am Lieutenant Prowl of the Tactical Division and –“

A bomb of sound shook the walls and Prowl was on the ground. It was agony. Ripping, clawing pain across his doorwings and a ringing in his helm that stole the strength from his legs.

However, he still heard when the pedes hit the floor and he tracked them as well as he was able.

“Prowl to Red Alert. Do you have optics on the fugitive?”

“No, whatever that was knocked out the cameras in a large radius. I’m blind.” 

“Lock down the sector. The mech is heading for the ground bridge. He utilizes a sonic weapon that disables quickly. Do not try to apprehend him yet.”

“Affirmative. I have security standing by.”

Of course he did. That was the point of security – to deal with situations like this. But after spending the majority of his new posting being allowed to do nothing, he was perhaps overeager to draft and enact a tactical strategy.

The pain was fading the smallest bit, but it was enough for Prowl to start running his battle computer. Prowl rolled to his hands and knees. If the mech had ranged weapons built in – and very cleverly if not even Ratchet had noticed them – then he would have to disable the mech before apprehending him.

And arm grabbed him and hauled him upwards slowly. 

“What was that, Lieutenant? It felt like the roof was caving in.”

Flash. His newest coworker in tactical.

“Escaped prisoner. These are your quarters?” He hadn’t thought these hallways used for anything but labs and storage. He took a few steps forward, trying to put together a plan and not fall on his aft.

“Seaspray’s storage actually. Berth cushions and spare mesh for bots not used to the colder weather here,” he chatted as he helped Prowl hobble forward. Feeling was slowly returning to his legs. Were he a young mech he would have tried running after the suspect and ended up back on the ground. As a seasoned officer he knew better. As he kept reminding himself.

“Wait – berth cushions? Does he stuff them himself?”

“He is a hidden cheapskate, yes he does. Or rather, I do. You stuff your own with all the insulation we have left over.”

“Approximately how much?”

0-0-0

Good plans and dignity did not always coexist. Prowl was aware he looked like an exploded cushion with insulation foam tied to his doorwings, his helm, and his chassis. He was, however, now the only sound damage resistant mech.

The mech wasn’t hard to find. His only option was to stake out one of the entryways into this section and hope he could be through it before he was caught. The best door would be one that opened into a bend instead of at the end of a hallways. It would give the mech the most shelter while he made his move.

Prowl was nearly to the only doorway that fit that criteria. 

“Halt,” he shouted when he arrived, despite that fact that he couldn’t see anyone. The mech had to be there. “Give yourself up peacefully.”

Something dropped from the ceiling and Prowl was thrown back slightly with the force of the waves.

It blunted the weapon, but didn’t stop it. It just gave Prowl enough time.

He let himself fall to one knee as if he were overcome, but instead used the position to launch himself at the mech.

They met with an unheard thud and went down. Prowl had him in stasis cuffs before either could take another vent, but the mech didn’t give in.

“Cease!” Prowl grunted, trying to stay on top of the wriggling frame, bits of the insulation tearing off to float in the air.

“I don’t belong to you!” the mech commed him.

“Yes you do!” Prowl gasped out, finally getting a second pair of cuffs on him. The frantic thrashing slowed down and Prowl was finally able to lever himself up and off the other mech. He used his servo to pin the mech’s wrist to the small of his back and kept it there.

“Think you can keep me!” The mech had yet to speak out loud. He wasn’t even really using his comm, just broadcasting.

“Yes. You are in our custody now. Cease resisting.” The mech didn’t. He strained until energon leaked from his wrists and Prowl worried that he would dislocated his shoulders.

“I belong to the Decepticons!” There wasn’t pride or anger in his voice over the broadcast. He sounded sad and scared. Was he a defector having second thoughts? Prowl spoke more soothingly.

“No, not anymore. You are in our custody. Even if they tried, the Decepticons cannot touch you here.” 

“And how are you going to stop me?” The mech would not stop fighting! He strained and thrashed like a mech delirious with a virus.

“When Ratchet gets here we will disable your weapons. We will place a tracker on you to prevent you from leaving. An inhibitor to stop you if you try.”

“What’s the point if you’re just gonna scrap me?” Phrased as a challenge, but too sorrowful to be one.

“We do not ‘scrap’ bots. You will be imprisoned until your trial. Afterwards we will find something for you to do.” If he wasn’t sentenced to prison.

The mech beneath him went limp so quickly Prowl thought he’d accidently killed him. He scrambled backwards and lifted the mech into his lap. Pale violet optics stared up at him. 

The mech was small – he would only reach up to Prowl’s shoulder – and rounded. He was obviously built for something that required speed and maneuverability unlike Prowl, who had been built to shield and absorb impact. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had dented the mech just by putting on the cuffs. His left servo was already covered from tip to joint in a splint from medbay.

“Are you all right?” Prowl asked, scanning him with the most basic medical scan, a leftover from his days with the enforcers. Nothing. He would be able to detect most major injuries with the scan. Anything he didn’t pick up wouldn’t be life threatening. He relaxed.

A moment later Ratchet and half of security arrived.

“You idiot!” he yelled and Prowl shrank back before realizing he was speaking to the prisoner. “You’re going to snap that servo right off! Do you have any idea how pissed off I’m going to be if I have to reattach a servo before the end of my shift?”

Silently, he commed Prowl.

“This one is strange. Even the other Cons said so.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He’s been on unofficial suicide watch since he got here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter a lot more! I finally had a break through of sorts while driving home one day last week. Now I at least have some direction that makes sense instead of "make opportunities for them to be snuggly and adorable." It only gets more adorable next chapter. Also, looking to name the two Cons that came with Jazz. Any Decepticons in need of redemption? They aren't going to be very important characters and they aren't very bright or malicious - mostly in it for the fuel and shelter.


	10. Scandal Induced Marriage 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl meets the mysterious Meister.

_“Have you heard of Meister?”_

Tannis’s ringing laugh was still bouncing around Prowl’s helm. He was not a brave mech and the terror on his face had been easy to read.

Meister was not one of the pseudo-lords or one of the elegant assassins that flited around, holding court like blood-soaked celebrities.

He was a hacker.

Reverse would have been better. Trannis would have been better. All the firewalls in the world wouldn’t stop Meister. He would call up the deleted information, force Prowl to reveal Ebonite and Fender and all the secrets that would get good bots, the bots he’d been trying to help, killed. All the penance of three vorn undone.

Prowl’s spark chamber felt empty and hollow. If he’d been left anything long enough– a scrap of metal or shard of glass he could have cut the fuel line to this processor, his body would have lived, kept alive by his spark and his fuel pump, but the information in his processor would have started to degrade until not even Meister could get it.

He paced the walls again, as if something would have changed since the night before. Some way for him to escape. 

Nothing.

The rooms in the underworld were carved, not built. The only thing beyond the walls was solid metal.

He was out of chances. After everything – after his creators, after Praxus, after living down here for so long, he had finally run out.

He slid to the floor. He could already feel the connection slamming home and the foreign mind ramming through his firewalls. He wouldn’t only feel Meister breaking his mind, he would feel the exact moment when each secret was discovered and ripped from its neat capsule of encryption. 

He purged his tanks, the vividness of that thought enough to cause an error in his processor.

Not wanting to slip into a pool of his own, still warm purged energon, he scrambled along the wall until he was next to the door. He didn’t know how long he sat there, frozen, imagining every click and thump to be Trannis returning.

His hands came up to cover the data ports on his wrist, his chassis, the back of his neck…

Well. He couldn’t stop Meister from hacking him, but he could delay him.

0-0-0

“What the frag did you do!?” Trannis slammed Prowl against the wall. The world spun and shook like a paint mixer. His helm striking metal was only half the reason for the dizziness. The other –

“You’ve ripped out all your dataports? You idiot! As if Meister can’t just replace them.” He threw Prowl to the ground. He loomed over, a leg raised to stomp him, then stopped. He turned to his guards. “Someone clean him up and bring him to my greeting room. His new bonded is waiting for him.” 

The guards were not kind. They dragged him into a washrack that hadn’t seen use in centuries and sprayed solvent wherever the energon had dripped. Two guards took his arms and one was behind him, holding his head in place. Prowl screamed as it splashed into the open circuitry and sparked. 

They forced his helm down to expose the wound on the back of his neck and the pain knocked Prowl into temporary stasis. He came around once they were moving again. Streams of solvent ran down his back as the scenery blurred around him.

Then they dragged him, still dripping, limp and sobbing to the greeting room.

The first view he had of Meister was through blurred, over-heated optics.

“As you can see, the damage is minor. Easily fixed.” Too close! Prowl flinched away from the sound of Trannis’s voice on his right, but the bots holding him jerked him back. The world swam messily. Prowl tried to find something to focus on. He locked onto a pair of pedes in front of him and looked up.

The mech was dark grey and in the dark room he faded away at the edges. Prowl tried to meet his optics, but could only find a dark visor encircling a rounded helm.

“Wha’ ‘appened?”

“He ripped out his dataports,” Trannis said with a laugh, flinching away from the figure. “He must have heard of you.”

“Mm.” The figure walked forwards and went to one knee so he could look Prowl in the face.

So this was Meister.

He wasn’t a particularly ugly mech, nor an attractive one. His face was plain gray to match the rest of him. A blue visor hid his optics from view, glowing faintly in the darkness of Trannis’s control room. He was probably a hand span shorter than Prowl and he lacked Prowl’s mass and thick armor. The smooth curves of his frame were made for speed and grace. Even his voice was low and even.

There was no reason for everyone in the room to lean away and flinch from him like he was an ungrounded current.

Meister was studying him back. Prowl shook, but met the hacker’s gaze. There was no reason to hope for a reprieve, so a last, defiant, stand would have to do. Or rather, a trembling, terrified one.

Finally, the mech spoke.

  


“Ya know why you’re here, right?”

Prowl remained silent. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of answering the patronizing question. Meister answered for him.

“We don’ got laws or rules or enforcers down here.” Prowl flinched. “So whatever punishment we deal has to be immediate. If you steal something – goods, data, a place to sleep – you have to either give it back or replace it. An since ya can’t give it back, ya gotta replace it. So now ya comin’ wit me ‘cause I bought your debt off a Trannis.”

He stood up and motioned for the guards to haul Prowl up to his feet as well.

“No.” It burst from him before he could stop. Meister’s face grew serious. He halted the guards and leaned in.

“What did you say?”

_Please, he thought, please don’t hurt me._

But it was wrong. Some small part of him that had never really let go of that Oath, spoke up.

_…to protect and guard all sparks from evil…_

“People…aren’t goods,” he gasped out. Meister’s face went blank.

“Hmmm.”

Prowl waited, time stretching and springing back, the fog thickening. Every mistake in his life could be traced back to a time when he’d been too slow to mute his vocalizer.

Meister stood up without saying anything and turned to Trannis.

“I got a trailer ‘round the front ta put him in ta get ‘im home. Follow and don’t damage ‘im even more.” The words were a warning to the guards holding him. Their grips tightened and began to dent his plating even as they swore they would be careful.

The journey through the tunnels was agony. Prowl tried to walk, but he couldn’t get his pedes to stay beneath him long enough to take a step before he was hanging helplessly between the guards again. The one on his left kept walking too quickly and they would jerk Prowl between them.

The one good thing was that every time they did this and every time Prowl cried out, Meister turned back to look.

No words, but each time it had them shaking. Prowl bitterly hoped that Meister would become annoyed enough to demonstrate his famed temper. It would serve the dual purpose of harming the guards who had been cruel to him and showing him what he was in for.

  


He was having trouble concentrating. He felt like he was very far away and the details of what was happening escaped him. The laser focus that had won him so many accolades was flickering on and off. He wasn’t even afraid anymore, letting everything float over him.

Trannis tried to make conversation the whole way, though Prowl was too fuzzy around the edges to make sense of it. Meister, as far as Prowl could tell, was ignoring him, walking single-mindedly towards the front of the dwelling with short, sharp, strides.

“Here it is!” Trannis said, throwing open two large metal doors. The glow of the crystals overhead outlined a small trailer at the bottom of the steps.

It would have to be small, his muddled processor decided, because Meister was small. He wasn’t a hauler. The guards started down the steps but a hand flew up in front and stopped them.

“Give ‘im ta me,” Meister said. They dropped Prowl like he was rust and Meister caught him, chassis to chassis.

“Idiots,” he muttered quietly as he dragged Prowl to the back of the trailer, still too fast for him to actually walk. Prowl couldn’t hold his head up so it thumped down onto Meister’s warm shoulder. 

The trailer was too short to stand up in or lay down in. It was meant for transporting small items, not mechs, but Meister carefully laid his top half inside and then shoved the rest of him inside so that he folded up into a small ball. It wasn’t the most uncomfortable position he’d been in that day, but Prowl was grateful to be horizontal instead of dragged by his arms.

There was a pause before Meister shut the hatch.

A hand reached out and gently squeezed his ankle. Then the hatch shut and he was enveloped in darkness.

It should have been terrifying. Instead it was calming. He heard more talking. Felt the trailer move as it was hitched to someone’s vehicle mode. Then he was moving, rocking gently back and forth.

Everything seemed very far away…

0-0-0

He was awake before he was aware. For a moment he believed that everything was just the result of his jumbled thoughts, that he was still in his small alcove.

The glow from the opening hatch reached his optics and they snapped on, sensing the light.

“Let’s get ya outta here,” came a quiet voice. There was a tug on his pede and Prowl knew he was expected to help. Maybe wiggle down towards the voice? That was when the voice registered and he realized he was not in his spot. Everything came rushing back and this time the fear wasn’t masked by the strange hysterical exhaustion that had overtaken him before the trip.

He jerked, but only succeeded in banging his helm against the side of the trailer.

“Hol’ on a minute.” Two hands wrapped around his pedes and pulled gently until he slid out and onto the ground. A hand on his shoulder helped him lean up against the bumper of the trailer as the world stopped spinning.

Meister had closely guarded the secret of where he lived. In the three vorns that Prowl had been down in the Underworld he’d never heard a single bot actually claim to know it. They speculated – even deeper, on the surface, behind a magma flow – but it would be like knowing where the Council kept the Matrix or where the Ill-fated Polyhex Expedition had ended up.

They were inside a small cavern with two doors. One large set of double doors, locked, reinforced, and bolted with a pole as thick as a bot’s arm obviously led to whatever road or path they’d taken. The other door was at the top of a set of stairs, small and unadorned.

“Can ya stand?” Prowl flinched and then nodded. He placed both hands on the edge of the trailers and started to push himself up, but it was too low and he was too weak. No fuel, no recharge. He froze. How long did he have until Meister got angry? What would he do if Prowl couldn’t stand? Would he drag him like the guards had? Have someone come out and do it? Strike him until he started crawling?

And hand entered his field of vision and wedged itself under one of his.

“Come on.” The voice betrayed neither anger nor reassurance. It was calm and level. Prowl leaned his weight on that hands and was able to get his feet beneath himself. For such a small bot, Meister was incredibly strong. His hand had never wavered.

Prowl tried to release that hand, but instead Meister grabbed him around the wrist and led Prowl up the steps and then through the door.

It was once again a small chamber – nothing like what the stories had predicted. This one had three doors and was lit with actual lights instead of natural crystal. Meister chose the door on the right and Prowl followed.

It was a tiny medical center. There were two medical berths with continuous scanners hooked up next to each one. He could see medical supplied through the clear doors of the cabinets in the back and even more were piled haphazardly in boxes.

“Where did you get all this?” It popped out before Prowl could think better of it. Prowl would have been less shocked if Meister had lead him to a vault of money. The medical berths and scanners alone would have cost more than the average above ground citizen made in a decavorn.

“Oh, here ‘n there.” Meister walked back and started rummaging through the cabinets. “Get up on a berth.”

Prowl looked at the medical berths. They were taller than the trailer and he’d had to be shoved into that like a length of rubber tubing.

Meister seemed to realize it as well and pushed a button on the side that brought it down to just below his knees. Prowl collapsed onto it, only barely keeping himself from toppling over on his side and passing out. He was so tired.

Once Meister seemed to have everything he wanted arranged on a tray table he wheeled it over. To his surprise it was not 12 new dataports ready to be installed. He didn’t recognize all of it, but he recognized a syringe, bowl of non-conductive solvent, instant patching for tubing, wires, and plating, as well as a half dozen other things he’d seen used in the Precinct the few times he’d been injured.

“Gonna flush out all a’ these first,” he said, filling the syringe with the solvent. Prowl nodded as if he has any choice in this and suppressed a flinch when Meister took hold of his arm again. Prowl vented deeply. He’d had less contact with his lovers than he’d had with Meister in the last cycle.

Meister held a thick absorbent mesh beneath his forearm and turned it so the open pit where his dataport had been was showing. Prowl felt sick.

“Don’ look if it’s gonna make ya purge. I’m gonna rinse it until the solvent runs clear and then I’ll put an instant patch on everything I can. This wasn’t cleanly done - what did you use?”

“I,” Prowl looked away as Meister peered at the exposed inner workings of his frame. He tried again. “I used my digits – I just pulled until it came out and then pulled until the wire’s snapped.” It had been sickening. He’s purged twice more until nothing had come up. But anytime he thought about stopping, he imagined Meister ripping through his processor or tearing into Fender until the old bot’s spark gave out.

Then he would be able to pull out another one. And another.

“Lotta work,” was Meister’s only reply before he started flushing the injury. Prowl jerked involuntarily. It wasn’t as bad as the solvent in the showers and if it was medical grade then it would have disposable nanites in it to clean and numb the wound. It still stung.

“Sorry,” Meister muttered as he flushed it for a third time, this time drawing a whimper from Prowl. “Almos’ done wit’ this one. Then I’ll put on the patches.”

Only eleven more to go, Prowl thought as he clenched his mouth closed. He didn’t acknowledge the apology. He knew this game. It had been a favorite at school for a time. Help poor, broken Prowl through his crash so he came around before the teacher found you and then make him crash again.

Somewhere around the eighth dataport Prowl stopped being afraid. 

He blamed it on exhaustion – not physical, but mental. He had been frightened for the last three vorns and terrified for the last two cycles. There didn’t seem to be any fear left. So when Meister told him to lie down so he could do the three dataports on his chest (huge ones, second only to the main dataport on the back of his neck), he nodded, laid back, and fell into a light recharge. The pain had become background noise, but the slow and steady movement of Meister’s hands across his plating had not. Drifting in and out he was able to forget who was touching him and just lose himself in the contact.

When Meister told him to flip over and expose his main dataport he shuffled and let the mech turn him over with barely an acknowledgement. 

What did bring him back was the lack of pain. He roused slightly and realized that Meister hadn’t started. Instead he was resting his hand on the back of Prowl’s helm and rubbing the spot where his helm and neck joined with a thumb. And he’d been talking.

“- an’ I don’ think – oh, are ya back wit’ me?”

“I – yes,” Prowl answered. The world seemed to be vibrating?

“I’m gonna give ya a bit o’ sedative and wrap one o’ the straps around ya. This is right over a bundle of wires that lead t’ ya processor. Be pretty awful jus’ like this. Ya hear me?” Prowl nodded. Oh, that was him vibrating. His entire frame seemed to have developed a fine shake that originated in his spark. Odd.

“Here we go.” Something pricked into a fuel line and he could feel each nanite as it attached itself somewhere and started blocking code. A thick band was wrapped snuggly over his back, just below his shoulders, another around his waist. Meister delicately wrapped his hand around Prowl’s throat to hold the mesh in place to catch the run off.

When the sting of the solvent came it was so muted Prowl hardly noticed. Instead he focused again on that hand, rubbing slow circles along the side of his jaw.

Then he was patched –as well as he could be – and Meister was getting him up.

“Gonna worry about all tha’ rust and those old injuries later. Let’s find ya berth and get ya in it.” Meister hauled Prowl up by the arm as easily as if he were a sparkling and draped most of Prowl’s upper half over his shoulders. Prowl wasn’t so much walking alongside him as being carried.

The reentered the front chamber (entry way? Greeting room?) and took the middle door. Prowl couldn’t see much as he was steered through more doorways until they came to a single room with a single berth.

“Here.” He was lowered onto the berth. Despite the low lighting, the fuzziness of his optics, and the fuzziness of his processor, Prowl was finally able to get a good look at Meister. His face was short, which made his features look bigger. His mouth was soft and full with one corner tucked up in a slight smile. A fine spread of scars, forming fractals across his cheek caught the dim light. The mech was unconventionally beautiful.

And, as the other bot arranged the mesh and squashy pillow, Prowl thought he looked unusually kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This came on fast. Hopefully it fits the criteria of comfort to match the hurt? 
> 
> I was trying to better demonstrate the long term damage Prowl has accumulated (mental and physical) since The Incident that led him into the underworld. He's chronically under fueled and over tired. He's touch-starved to the point that any kindness is welcomed, even when he thinks it'll turn on him. He's gone from hyper-awareness to dissociation.
> 
> Jazz on the other hand is trying hard to maintain maximum EVIL with Trannis and then keep his cool with Prowl when all he wants is to scoop the idiot up and parade him to a giant feather bed where he can be fed treats.
> 
> And can I mention that I accidently typed Jazz instead of Meister and thought to myself "Good thing I caught that before the readers saw it!" Wouldn't want to to give that plot point away. I'm sure you're all just waiting to see who Meister is. So mysterious. He could be anyone.


	11. Secret Baby 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like creator like sparkling in more ways than one.

Jazz didn’t have the modifications yet to carry a sparkling in his altmode and he was so tired it wouldn’t have been safe anyway, so it was walking for them. Thankfully they were only a short distance from the hotel. 

Holding a sparkling was far more difficult than Jazz had anticipated. Siren was significantly lighter than an electro-bass, but instruments didn’t squirm and bop you in the face and it was a rare thing for one of them to periodically scream in your audial for no reason what-so-ever.

He was also balancing a pack of energon cubes, filtered and proportioned for sparklings and every time Siren wiggled the pack jammed into Jazz’s side. It had been pressed into his arms as he signed Siren out along with a long list of comm numbers just in case Jazz couldn’t get to the store.

He had requested access to Prowl’s place before he’d even left the bar to retrieve Siren’s stuff, with the idea that the sparkling would stay with him in the hotel. Where Jazz could keep an eye on him. And possibly 27 illegally place cameras. 

Instead the officer had sent Jazz the entry number and assured him that the apartment had been searched and he was intended to stay there with Siren until Prowl was found. They had been oddly insistent on that, even after Jazz had told them he had a hotel room already.

Which meant that Jazz was even more suspicious of the whole thing than he was before. And that he had to move 27 illegal cameras.

But before any of that he had to figure out how to get Siren to the hotel. The sparkling had been almost content to be carried out of the hospital, but it seemed to sink in that he was not going to be taken to his carrier.

“Jus’ a little farther, bitlet, come on,” he urged, walking faster. The little chassis beneath his hand began to expand again and Jazz broke into a jog. If they could just get past all the damned windows and advert screens –

Jazz cut the power to his audials as Siren screamed and the nearby street light shorted out and exploded. The scream ended in choked sobs and tiny claws scraping across his plating.

“I want carrier,” the bitlet sobbed desperately into Jazz’s shoulder.

“I know, sweetspark, I know. I’m gonna get him for ya. I know,” he babbled desperately, cupping a hand around the back of his helm. If they could just get inside he could – he could –

He didn’t know what he could do, but he wouldn’t have to worry about rains of glass and plasma screens.

He pelted head long into the lobby, not bothering to stop. He reached his door and tapped in the code with shaking fingers. Ha! If his old group could see him now – shaking with a sparkling in his arms.

The door closed behind them and Jazz sunk to the floor in relief.

But Siren was no better. He huddled against Jazz miserably, pressing close, but it was obvious that Jazz wasn’t what he wanted.

“Gonna get my stuff an’ then we’ll go back ta ya habsuite, yeah Siren? And then I’ll work on finding carrier.” He stroked the sparkling’s back gently, just like he had with Prowl so long ago. It seemed to work a little. 

Holding Siren was so strange. He could feel the miniature fuel pump moving beneath the microchip thin plating. His spark was a small disk of warmth pressed against Jazz’s own. Each digit was curled into the seams of his armor, the tiny claws (just like Jazz’s!) jabbed at the inner wires every time the sparkling shifted.

Eventually he stopped shaking and Jazz stood up, keeping him in place with one arm as he packed with the other.

Jazz talked as he packed.

“Got ya some energon treats for later –“

“Silly of me to bring my electro-bass, I know –“

“Do you like taking mid-day naps like me? I hope so –“

And so on and so forth. Prowl had liked to listen to him talk. It didn’t seem to matter how silly or boring it was. Once he had made an impassioned speech to Prowl about how unfair the new laws were regarding busking. Busking was Jazz’s main form of income at the time and it had left him incensed. They’d spent the whole second half of the darkcycle discussing it only for him to learn that he’d read the laws wrong. Going back the next day to admit he was wrong should have been humiliating, but Prowl had only nodded and complimented him on the thoroughness of his arguments.

He’d since learned how to keep his vocalizer muted – especially in unfamiliar company. He may not be famous, but even just well-known music stars had scandals.

Siren seemed, if not soothed by the chatter, at least mildly distracted by it. 

“Okay, gonna have ta se’ ya down now,” Jazz said, lowering Siren to the overly firm berth pad. He stayed in place, looking up curiously at Jazz. “Can’t reach everythin’ wit’ ya on my hip.” He laid each hand on the walls and activated his magnets. 

Then he removed 28 cameras. He counted them again. Still 28. Had a certain paranoid former co-worker been on planet he’d have assumed it was his over-protective streak. Instead Jazz was very glad he’d been overly cautious with his preparations.

The extra, once he was able to pick it out, was not a basic model. It wasn’t something bots got off the digital market to spy on cheating partners or record stupid pranks. It was very obviously government issue and well hidden.

It was good to know he wasn’t paranoid!

Which made him more paranoid.

Perhaps the habsuite, with its security system, single entrance, and front gates manned by surveillance drones, would be better.

0-0-0

“Okay, sparklet, let’s take a rest,” Jazz said once each camera’s data had been downloaded and stored. The infiltrator’s camera was placed in a lined electro-bass case. The case was necessary to keep errant signals from untuning it and it also made a great signal blocker.

Each of his cameras showed a single jump in time right after he left for the hospital to pick up Siren. He wouldn’t know how they got in until he hacked the hotel’s security footage, so as a stopgap measure he kept up four of his cameras, covering the whole room, and asked Hound to monitor them. 

The conversation had consisted mostly of stunned silence after Jazz revealed that not only did he have a long lost sparkling, but that the sparkling was Prowl’s.

“Woah,” was Hound’s only response along with a promise not to take his eyes off the pair while they napped. Jazz suspected part of it was wanting to see the sparkling.

In the meantime he was going to take a nap before he fell over or Siren got cranky enough to blow out the windows. He used the pillows to make an improvised barrier to keep the mechling from rolling and then stretched out next to him.

“Lay down and get some shut eye, sweetspark.” Jazz snuggled his helm into the firm pad with relief.

“No,” Siren said clearly, sitting up, the pillows catching on one of his antennae. “Carrier,” he demanded. “Now.” He pointed to the door.

“Not yet, Siren, bitlet, we don’t know where he is yet.” _Please just lay down_.

“Carrier?” he asked again and Jazz could see the building of another meltdown. 

“Not here, Siren. It’s alright.” He touched Siren’s should but instead of calming down Siren got louder. 

“Carrier!” he called, kicking out at Jazz. “Carrier!”

What had he done wrong? What was he supposed to do? Jazz couldn’t think. He was tired and confused too, slaggit!

“Now now now now!” The voice rose higher and Jazz was being pinged by the front desk – they were adding on charges for noise violations.

“I WANT CARRIER!” The screen in the room shattered and Jazz lost it. He sat up and engaged his own integrated speakers.

“QUIET!”

They froze. 

Siren trembled. 

Jazz had thought the guilt over hurting Prowl was unmatchable. He was wrong.

“Oh, oh sweetspark. I’m so sorry brightspark.” 

Siren pulled his arms and legs in, pressing his face down. Jazz heard him sob.

Slowly he reached forward and wrapped an arm around Siren, pulling him close. He stayed vigilant for any sign that the sparkling wasn’t comfortable as he lifted him up onto his chassis. From this angle he could see the exhaustion on his sparkling’s face. He’d been alone for who knew how long in his habsuite, then he’d been at the hospital waiting for Jazz, and now he was in a strange room with a mech he’d never met before. Jazz didn’t know how to comfort him.

Jazz leaned back until he was horizontal and Siren was curled up on top of him, still except for the occasional hiccupping sob.

The book had a chapter about this too, but for the first time it wasn’t helpful.

0-0-0

_When A Sparkling Asks Where Their Creators Are:_

_An older sparkling, especially one that remembers their creators may ask about them. They may want to return to them. Be honest. If they are in the Well or their creators’ rights have been terminated and the sparkling will not be allowed to see them – don’t lie. Don’t tell them that maybe they’ll see carrier when he’s ‘better’ or that their creator ‘might’ come see them sometime._

_Tell them why. If the reason is serious, engage the services of a Sparkling Trauma Specialist to help you explain that their creators aren’t safe or weren’t able to care for them properly._

_NO THE THERAPIST CANT’T TELL THEM. It has to be you._

_If you and the creators have agreed on an open adoption plan, be honest and fair._

_A sparkling might demand to return to their previous living situation. This is not a reflection on you._

_REAPEAT THAT OUT LOUD. It’s not because you’re a bad creator or they hate you._

_We like things that are familiar, often to our detriment. Explain to them why. Let them know you love them. Give them space if they need it. Be available._

_Then, once the crisis is over, find somewhere the sparkling can’t hear you and curse out the world properly. Being a creator is really fragging hard. Being an adoptive creator comes with whole new problems. But you’re here because you wanted someone to love and you’re reading this book, probably in the middle of the darkcycle, possibly crying, possibly cursing, because you want them to be happy._

_That’s step one._

0-0-0

So, with Siren splayed across his plating, snuffling and whistling as he drifted into recharge, Jazz planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhhh. That is all.
> 
> Next chapter for this is mostly written and should be posted later today!


	12. Secret Baby 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like creator, like sparkling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Tread carefully if you're sensitive to the topic of adoption

Being woken up by a sparkling bopping him in the face with his tiny (and perfect) helm was perhaps the best experience of Jazz’s life.

He opened his eyes and looked down. Siren was babbling nonsense to himself and crawling around on Jazz’s chassis and shoulders. He seemed to find Jazz’s sensory horns fascinating and kept touching them gently, pulling back and giggling to himself. Amid the clicks and beeps of sparkling speech Jazz caught the words “energon” “carrier” and “up.”

“Time ta ge’ up, bitlet?” Jazz said, voice coming out low and rough. Siren looked at him, tilting his head to one side then the other. He looked so much like Prowl in that moment that Jazz missed a ventilation and coughed.

Siren found that _hilarious_. His whole frame vibrated and shook as he toppled forward, his helm bumping Jazz’s chin. In contrast to his earlier volume, his laugh was nearly soundless.

Jazz sat up and caught him as he tumbled into Jazz’s lap, still huffing his weird laugh.

“Think tha’s funny, huh, little noisemaker?” Jazz eased them off the berth. The relief that he’d been forgiven was immense. “Le’s get ya something ta fuel on and then head out. I bet ya miss ya berth.”

Jazz opened one of the cubes for him. Instead of a seal across the top it had a small pull tab that opened only a small slot for energon.

When he turned around Siren had already wiggled off the berth and was stomping around with one hand on the edge of the berth like a guide.

“Here you go.” Jazz handed him the small cube and Siren took it in one hand distractedly.

Jazz access the info packet the hospital had given him. It had been to him to detail all of Siren’s medical information, but it was also useful for other things.

Like his emergence day.

Siren was already 71 vorns old. Jazz searched a growth chart (“Your Growing Sparkling!”) and read the tiny, bubbly paragraph at 70-85 vorns

“At 70 weeks your sparkling is mobile! They get around on those adorable wobbly legs like the little Primus sent gifts that they are! They’ll be utilizing more and more of their innate language programing and start putting together simple sentences. They’ll understand more than they say – so watch out! Now’s the time to put that scrap yard mouth away creators!”

Jazz had never really been around sparklings except when he was one so he had no reference. After reading the chart he still felt like he had no reference.

He preferred Brightstreak’s description of “Smart enough to get into trouble, not yet smart enough to get out of it.”

Siren was now trying to see out the window, trailing a dribble of energon behind him as he tilted the cube this way and that.

He could start his own growth chart – at 75 vorns old sparklings have no concept of the properties of liquids. They rack up enormous damage bills.

“Careful!” Jazz said, stupidly, watching it puddle beneath him. Siren, upon hearing his voice, turned and pointed at the window.

“Up!” 

“How about – “

“Up please!” He bounced on his pedes to try and see out.

At least he wasn’t crying. 

“Okay.” Jazz lifted him up so he could see out the window and this delighted him as well.

Unfortunately he didn’t tolerate being put back down so Jazz could grab his stuff and get out the door. Directing his attention back to the cube did nothing but remind Siren he hadn’t spilled quite all of it yet. So he decided to throw it and start bouncing again.

“Please up please up please up! Again up!”

Jazz looked between the sparkling, the mess of the hotel room, and the door.

“Siren, have you ever ridden on a mech’s shoulders?”

0-0-

By the time they arrived at Prowl’s place Jazz’s whole frame ached, but Siren hadn’t started crying. He’d even realized where they were the closer they got and babbled a mixture of names (Bee, Gate, GrimGrim) and exclamations.

It was a nice neighborhood. Mostly clean and the only graffiti was the government sanctioned “artistic” sort that made the place look modern and edgy only to government officials.

There were a few old and mismatched shops selling treats and the latest datapad downloads.

Prowl’s building was tucked between two similar ones. Small aerial drones hovered above them – probably they all employed the same security company. Jazz typed in his access code to enter the building and then the override code the building manager had given the enforcers.

That would need to be changed immediately.

The door slid open and Jazz lifted Siren down and onto his hip. He wasn’t letting go of it until he was certain the rooms were safe.

The habsuite was small, especially for Praxus. It consisted of two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, a single washrack tucked into the corner, and the front room where he stood now.

It was clearly a home created with love and care for Siren. The walls were painted and decorated to look like enamel, but they were actually sound absorbing foam panels. 

Five inches of foam. Jazz worked in the sound industry, he knew how much all that would have cost a single creator on an enforcer’s budget.

The windows looked like glass, but were flexible silicon with metal threads running through it.

It also sported all the typical sparkling-proofing that his book had recommended like rounded corners and bolts holding shelves to the walls and ceiling.

The front room had a single couch and a desk where Prowl presumably did his work. It was neat as a pin with each file put away and even the datapads stacked properly. The only touch of the mech Jazz knew was the potted crystal on the corner, glowing slightly with heat.

Siren wiggled to get down, but Jazz only hiked him high up and got a better hold. He’d been on edge long before he’d found the camera, but now his edge had a razor sharpness to it. Someone _was_ watching them. It wasn’t safe.

Jazz walked into the kitchen and casual glanced at all the hiding places a bot could be, taking care to consider even a cassette sized intruder.

“Stick!” Siren yelled, kicking Jazz painfully and reaching for the jar of rust sticks on the counter.

“Like Carrier like Sparkling,” Jazz said, wincing at the new dents. “You can have one, I think.” He searched for “Can sparklings have rust sticks” first. Then he unscrewed the lid and broke one in half. “Here.” He handed Siren one and stuck the other in his mouth, sucking the rust off idly. Siren gnawed on his enthusiastically, his whole frame relaxing at the familiar rooms and the familiar treat.

Jazz peered into Prowl’s room just to check first.

Ah. Interesting.

Then he took them into Siren’s room. Here, the love was even more obvious.

It was completely covered in soft, absorbing materials in bright, sparkling-friendly colors. The walls were gray with various drawings held up with tape, obviously the artwork of Siren. A few simple paintings hung by the sparkling berth: a still of the Praxus skyline done in pinks and golds, a moving frame of a turbofox kit bouncing down a walkway, and one that stopped Jazz cold.

It was a painting of Prowl holding a much smaller Siren. 

Seeing the mech brought up so many emotions. Speaking about him, remembering him, hadn’t prepared him to face his ex-lover, even just in a picture.

It was the same faceplate and the same colors. The artist had matched Prowl’s harsh white and charcoal black paints perfectly. The only different were his eyes. Before they had usually burned with anger and passion. They had turned cold enough to freeze helium solid the night they’d broken it off.

These eyes were soft and tired as he looked down at the sparkling in his arms. It was a post-emergence painting, he realized. Whoever had done it had been in the room with Prowl after Siren had emerged and had caught that look of exhausted affection. Jazz envied them.

“We’ll find ya, Prowler,” Jazz whispered to the painting, reaching out a hand to touch.

Then Siren tried to shove the wet, chewed end of his rust stick into Jazz’s mouth.

“Gah!” Jazz jumped and frantically wiped the chewed residue from his cheek. “Siren!”

“Carrier!” the sparkling shrieked, pointing to the picture. 

“Yeah, yeah, ya carrier liked rust sticks. Thanks a lot.” Jazz walked over and set him into the sparkling berth. It had low metal sides and a mess of pillows inside. A stuffed turbofox was tucked into the corner. Siren flopped down and began making high pitched beeps that bounced off the metal to his amusement. Each echo got a little soundless laugh.

“Makin’ music just like your creator, huh? Stay here.” Jazz wasn’t going to get his hopes up that Siren would maintain his happy mood much longer. Surrounded by his things in his own home he was feeling comforted. Soon he would start looking for Prowl again.

Jazz planned to find him.

0-0-0

Prowl’s room was smaller than even the kitchen. It held enough space for the berth and a single shelf that had to be put in at an angle to get it in. Jazz looked over it all carefully, but quickly. He found nothing but a few novels and an extra secret box of rust sticks. These had been dipped in high grade before being rolled in the rust.

So Prowl had developed a taste for high grade after all.

Jazz sat down on the berth and examined the bookshelf.

When they’d first met and Jazz had still been traveling on his second tour, Prowl had been a prodigious letter writer. He’d also lived in the enforcer’s barracks and shared space with the planet’s largest group of gossips.

He’d complained once to Jazz on a rare (and expensive) long distance comm that the other enforcers were taking his datapads and reading them aloud. Jazz had taught him now to make a hollow shelf to hide it.

So the slight nicks on the sides of the second shelf that wouldn’t have meant anything to a burglar, an enforcer, or (hopefully) whoever had placed that 28th security camera. They had caught Jazz’s eye immediately.

He carefully lifted it up and used the sharp tips of his claws to pry the top off. Inside was a very worn and old datapad.

Carefully, preparing to abort a self-destruct, he turned it on.

It didn’t even ask for a password.

Jazz scrolled through and realized it was a diary. Started 72 vorns ago. Hesitantly he navigated to the very first entry.

_Entry 1_

_I found out about you today. They showed me the scan of my spark with you, floating around it so close they almost didn’t pick you up._

_You’re already six cycles old._

_Entry 2_

_I used to write Jazz. I’m not sure why I’m writing these to you. Maybe I’m practicing for when you’re older and I have to actually talk to you._

_Entry 3_

_I told the Carrying Specialist I didn’t know who the co-creator was. I don’t care what he thinks about me, frankly, but now they’re throwing all these pamphlets at me about adoption._

_Entry 4_

_The Specialist talked to me about installing a contraceptive implant after you emerged. Then he told me about a couple he is counseling who are having trouble sparking. They are apparently kind, devoted, and have a lovely large habsuite next to a park. One of them is planning on staying home with the sparkling._

_He told me he knew how stressful being an enforcer was and didn’t I want to focus on my career? Have I considered adoption? The couple was open to allowing visits from the carrier._

_I told him I was finding another Carrying Specialist, but I used stronger words._

_Then I reported him to the ethics board for conflict of interest and pressuring his patients._

_Entry 5_

_What if he was right?_

_Entry 6_

_Jazz didn’t love me. It hurts to write it. My creators loved me, but they didn’t like me very much and we were all glad when I moved out._

_What if I can’t love you? What if you can’t love me? Even Jazz couldn’t. Even him._

Jazz reached up and brushed the optic fluid before it could spill onto the datapad. A hurt, so deep it felt like it was tugging at his very core, opened back up. He’d never stopped feeling guilty about hurting Prowl, he’d just gotten better at ignoring it. It was almost a relief to acknowledge it finally and let himself feel it.

Prowl had deserved so much better than him.

The next entries detailed Prowl finding a new Carrying Specialist and going for more scans. Then -

_Entry 14_

_I can feel your spark. It’s the brightest thing I’ve ever felt, like carrying a supernova around in my chassis._

_I haven’t even seen you and I love you already. You are 26 cycles old._

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

_0-0-0_

_Entry 18_

**_Please stop zapping me in the middle of the darkcycle._ **

_Entry 19_

**_Please stop zapping me in the middle of command meetings._ **

_Entry 32_

_I don’t hate Jazz. I was afraid I’d see him in your optics and remember that night. But I don’t hate him. I never hated him. I wish he could know you, but he made it clear that night that I, and now you, don’t fit into his world._

_Someday we’ll all meet and I’ll show you to him. When there’s no chance of him hurting you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think I went more full force cuteness for this chapter. I teared up a bit writing the diary entries. More to come there! And Prowl gets to be happy! Don't worry. :) 
> 
> Also, since this is fanfiction and not a published book I get to add this into the notes: 
> 
> *hops up on soapbox*
> 
> What the doctor did to Prowl was wrong because he was looking out for the interests of himself and his other patients instead of Prowl's. It was wrong to start pressuring him because he was a single parent. He was trying to take advantage of someone he saw a vulnerable even if he believed it was for Prowl's "own good."
> 
> It would have been fine if Prowl had asked about adoption and received unbiased and factual information from a doctor who wants what is best for Prowl. Just as it would be fine if Prowl received information about supports for single and low-income parents after indicating he wanted such information. Or, all options could have been discussed to find what was best for Prowl. Giving a child up for adoption is a loving, but difficult thing. People should not be shamed into their choice, no matter what what that choice is.
> 
> *hops off soapbox*
> 
> So, yes. I didn't want anyone to get the impression that I oppose adoption. This story is causing me to have many feelings. You may have noticed them in The Book Jazz is reading.


	13. Scandal Induced Marriage 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl hasn't just hit rock bottom, he's smashed through the core of the planet with nothing but his (terrible) luck and a new friend. However will he face...decent fuel and a warm blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of theoretical rape and general misery

Prowl was very comfortable, but a vague anxiety was filling him. His helm hurt like nothing he’d experienced before. A dull, unrelenting throb. 

Something…he was supposed to do something? He shifted with great effort – it felt like he had anvils tied to his limbs – and realized he was very sore. He lifted on hand with difficulty across his frame and poked at the sorest spot on his arm. Maybe he’d fallen during physical training and pulled a cable out of place…

His servo touch a deep dent where it shouldn’t be and he jerked awake.

Something had happened – something was wrong – he needed to leave, he needed to run, they were coming –

He flailed against the mesh covering him and tried to sit up. 

Where was he? It was so dark – darker than it was in…in the underground.

He vented slowly through his mouth to cool his processor faster. He was in the underground. The last three and a half vorns played through his memory. It didn’t happen as often anymore, but when he forgot…it was almost worse than when it had all happened. 

Trannis came back. Meister. The strange, well stocked medbay and the patching. He looked down and saw a thin, flexible sheet covering the gap where his dataports had been. It would be enough to keep out debris, but it was still just a temporary patch. Meister would be planning on replacing at least one of this dataports…

He shivered. The movement worsened his helmache. He was so low on fuel it was starting to bypass his extremities, circulating in his helm and chassis only. And lower and he wouldn’t be able to move.

At least he’d corrupted or deleted most of his memories files. His confusion was probably a result of that damage, now that he considered it.

He couldn’t get away. He turned his face into the berth so at least Meister wouldn’t see his tears when he came in to…to…

Would he want to...

Prowl couldn’t even think it. The silent tears were turning into shuddering sobs and he tried to get himself under control, but he couldn’t concentrate long enough.

Maybe Meister would be content with just hurting him. Maybe Prowl would have to look up and see his face as he…as he…

He couldn’t hold a single train of thought in his head, but the image of Meister, looking down at him, mid-interface, knowing Prowl was in pain, knowing Prowl was scared and enjoying it, wouldn’t leave. His face was just shadows and the dull glint of crystal light off plating and it seemed to merge with the faces of others from his past: Taranndulous, Gouge, and his commander.

Then he could see them in the shifting shadows cast by the flickering glow of the dying crystals and they turned into faces as well: Bucket and Bolt, Chopper, Fender, Halogen, and Oil Cap.

“Stop,” he sobbed into the pillow. He knew they weren’t real. They weren’t. Didn’t he? 

Didn’t he what? He was shaking again or had he ever stopped?

“Shhhhh.”

He was freezing. He tried to lift a hand to see if he’d already gone gray, but he couldn’t move it. Yes, if he was already offline of course couldn’t move his hands.

“Let’s get you warmed up and fueled, copbot.” Something thick and heavy fell on him and he screamed out. He was so scared. Something was touching his helm and he waited for – for something bad. He knew it was bad for someone to do that –

“Ya need ta sit up a bit. Come on.” The world was spinning and he couldn’t focus his eyes on anything but the shifting shadows. They turned into things when he offlined his optics: monsters and sparkeaters. Someone was crying and he couldn’t help them.

“’s a’ight,” said a voice close and low. The world disappeared and he was pressed against something warm from helm to hip. “Ya safe, Prowl, everythin’s fine.” He could feel the spinning of another bot’s spark against his shoulder. He wasn’t alone. At least he wasn’t alone.

His head was tilted back, supported by an iron bar attached to a hand and he whimpered at the loss of warmth and the sudden exposed feeling. There was something he was supposed to be afraid of, wasn’t there?

“I gotcha. Not too eager to fiddle with a line in ya tanks and I don’t think ya’d appreciate a sparkling’s cube. Here.” Something was pressed against his mouth and he opened it reflexively.

Energon. Energon, warm and incredibly thick, drizzled into his mouth. He tried to lean forward – to get more into his mouth – to grab the cube himself, but he was too weak to do more than twitch.

“It’s ya cube. Don’t worry. We’re jus’ gonna sit here until ya’ve finished it. No one to take i’ from ya.” The voice was calm and the flow from the cube a steady trickle-stop-trickle-stop that made it easy to gulp down.

Prowl gave into that voice and the warmth that was spreading from his center to the tips of his doorwings and the soles of his pedes.

“There, there ya go. Have ya fueled up in no time.” The voice grew softer. “Nah, nah don’ do that. Stay awake for the res’ o’ the cube at least.”

Stay awake?

0-0-0

Prowl blinked. Hadn’t someone been there a moment ago? The common morning warnings were popping up as he shifted. Ambient temperature too low, nanites too low to get an accurate count and – that was odd. His fuel gauge was showing he nearly had a quarter of a tank – twice as much as he’d had when he’d fallen into recharge.

His servos felt like they were on fire. He lifted one up and a thick mesh slid off and slumped against his chassis. It looked fine. He could move it. It just hurt.

“Tha’s ya wires and sensors comin’ back online.”

Prowl jerked. He looked wildly around the room for the unexpected voice and landed on a chair in the corner. The mech was balancing it on the back two legs and staring straight at him.

“Meister.”

“Yes.”

They stared. Prowl tried to surreptitiously pull the mesh higher, but he knew Meister had noticed.

“We haven’ exactly talked, not properly. An’ I suppose ya’ll wan’ a know what ya’ll be doin’ here.” Meister’s face gave nothing away. Even his visor never flickered. 

“Yes.” Prowl tried to keep his tone as steady as Meister’s. Even if he was the only one to know…he wanted to remember himself as, if not brave, at least stoic.

“Ya can’ do much of anything righ’ now. Ya’ve been so low on fuel for so long it’s started ta damage ya systems. Notice any problems with ya processor? Or difficulty movin’? Ya got a rust infection under ya plating tha’s headin’ for ya spark chamber. Ya may not have realized but ya processor ‘s been doin’ micro-restarts the whole time we’ve been talkin’.”

Prowl’s first instinct was to insist that it wasn’t that bad. He was fine. He was always fine. He always had to be fine.

Instead he looked down at his servos, clasping he edges of the mesh and shaking slightly.

“Ya not really useful ta anyone righ’ now. So I have some rules.” The chair slammed down and Meister leaned forwards.

“Firs’, no arguing. Ya do what I tell ya. Second, ya never lie ta me. I find out ya lied – well, it won’t be pleasant.” He smiled and there was no malice in it, but no warmth either. “Third, you mus’ not, under any circumstances, go up to the second floor.”

Prowl remained silent.

“Agreed?” Meister stood up and Prowl felt his spark seize. “Prowl, agreed?”

He wouldn’t. It was demeaning. It was not fair or legal. He wouldn’t dignify it with a reply. If Meister wanted to keep him prisoner – a bought “bondmate” – then Prowl couldn’t stop him.

“I seemed ta remember the firs’ rule was “no arguing.”” Now Meister’s voice had an edge of menace.

“I’m not!” Prowl barked at him caught off guard by his own indignation. “I’m not arguing – I’m ignoring you!”

It was the first time he’d seen Meister even slightly off since they’d met. His mouth dropped open just barely and he titled his head slightly, trying to make sense of Prowl’s words.

“I’m not,” Prowl repeated again, chassis tight with fear, but unwilling to let it go. “Arguing requires two opposing viewpoints to be spoken about with evidence and conviction. I’m not engaging with you.”

“O’ a course not,” Meister said finally, moving toward him. “We obviously got some finer details ta work out. But for now, ya gonna listen ta me because ya can’t get off that berth wit’ out me.” 

Now Meister was right in front of him.

“Ya gonna want ta come wit’ me or else we’re gonna learn what I mean by “it won’t be pleasant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's odd. Out of all of them this story is the easiest to write and feels the most cohesive, but the first chapter gave me so much trouble! I'm not sure if it's moving in the direction I want to go in though. Prowl here is different from the other stories too - he is truly without support and also younger in comparison. I had intended him older (disgraced former Commander! Forced to do menial work!)but he turned more and more into a brave, stubborn fresh faced recruit that needs rescuing.
> 
> To everyone speculating about the Secret Baby story line - be suspicious, be very suspicious. There are more than just two sides at work.


	14. Secret Baby 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is scared, then brave, and decides he's going to go after what he wants.

Jazz curled up on the berth, his chassis heaving, trying to get himself back under control.

He needed to leave. He needed to go back to Iacon and set up his next tour. He wasn’t cut out to be a creator – Pit, he wasn’t even good enough to be Prowl’s lover for more than a couple vorn. And that was the longest he’d ever kept a partner.

Jazz had always known he wasn’t a “staying” kind of mech. He’d flited from lover to lover and been happy. It wasn’t until Prowl that he’d actually thought about trying for something long term.

And look how that had turned out! Did he really want to do the same thing to Siren? Prowl, careful, suspicious Prowl had known Jazz would hurt them again and had kept their sparkling a secret for over 70 vorns.

He would find Prowl. He owed him that – frag it he owed him so much more. He would find Prowl, but he would return Siren to bots who at least wouldn’t damage him.

He stood up, dialing the hospital, dialing Ricochet and Red Alert, Firestarter and Punch, and the datapad bounced off the bed and fell.

Great! Now he was breaking Prowl’s things. 

He bent down, half blinded by the tears, and grabbed it off the ground. He stood still, waiting to be connected to the hospital, optics cycling on and off as he tried to calm down and a word on the datapad caught his eye.

There were two entries:

_Entry 432_

_It finally happened! I was made a commander thanks to the Captain! We can move out of here. It’s so strange that -_

It cut off into corrupted gibberish from the fall and then:

Entry 54

_It’s hard, **brightspark**. It’s so hard right now. The only reason we can eat is because of the government funded kitchen around the block. It’s always cold. _

_There are good people out here though. Bots I want you to meet. We didn’t get on very well at first. I’m afraid your carrier is a bit of an aft. I’ve never been good at keeping my opinion to myself. Most of our neighbors already hate us._

_The mech that runs the soup kitchen walked me home last night. I think he was worried that I’d finally had enough. I think I really had reached my limit._

_He grabbed my arm (which I didn’t like, but he’s a very physical mech) and just said, “I see you every day, trying for your sparkling. That’s all any of us want out of each other – for someone to keep trying for us. If you need help, my door is always open.”_

_I shoved him away. I started to tell him that I was fine. You were fine. We didn’t need anyone. I was angry. I’ve always been angry._

_But I was so tired, brightspark. I miss my family. I miss Jazz._

_I looked at him and his face was so kind. He’d one of the good bots I want you to meet. His name is Swerve._

_I thanked him. I told him we were cold. I was always cold. At home, at work. The carrying specialist couldn’t figure out what it was besides to tell me it might all be in my processor._

_He told me he understood and he would do everything he could to help._

_Today he brought me fortified energon and a mesh from his own home. It was a gift from his grandcreator and he wanted me to have it._

_“To keep your sparks warm.”_

_I haven’t been cold since. I’m trying brightspark. I’m trying._

_0-0-0_

"Hello, Praxian Enforcer Hospital -"

He cut the connection.

Could he try? Was it worth it? The risk of hurting Siren? Of see Prowl again and having him rip Siren away? Another image came, of Prowl walking away, his back to Jazz, carrying Siren in his arms. If he messed this up he would lose them both.

Either way he would lose them both. Either way it would hurt – it was just that one way he could fool himself into thinking it was okay for the span of the day cycle.

The first few cycles after he’d hurt Prowl he hadn’t powered down. He’d blasted music and fallen into recharge in spurts – anything to keep his processor from returning to that conversation in the dark and silence of the dark cycle. It wasn’t until much later that he’d allowed himself to remember him and even then he’d tried to put a filter over the memories to make them seem further away. A fond dalliance in his youth that didn’t end well. Not one of the most spark wrenching times of his life.

Now he allowed himself to remove the filter and the raw feelings of those days hit him like they were just the cycle before.

They had loved talking – they had been kicked out of a few public parks for loitering deep into the dark cycle, discussing everything they could think of.

They have loved silence too. Prowl was the only bot Jazz had ever felt comfortable enough to sit with. He remembered them in the park, watching the crystals start to glow and the tiny glitchmice start scurrying around. He’d finally gotten the courage to reach out and take Prowl’s hand in a park, long after dark, sitting in the silence. 

Prowl had lifted their joined hands and set them on his thigh with a faint clink. Jazz had leaned slightly and pressed against him. They’d stayed like that until morning, just listening to the whirl of each other’s systems and the shushing sounds of the mech-mice cords.

Jazz remembered the time Prowl had confided in him for the first time how cruel some of his coworkers had been. Stiff backed and emotionless, he’d detailed little cruelties and acts of inconsiderateness. It had taken him a lot to even casually mention it.

Jazz couldn’t go and beat them up – both because he was out of that kind of life and because Prowl would kill him – but he also didn’t have the money to treat him.

So he’d bought the most expensive energon treat he could afford and wrote Prowl a song. He remembered the way his hands had shaken before he started singing and strumming his electro-bass. He’d wanted to make Prowl feel better, but he hadn’t known how. When the song was over, he’d been too nervous to look up – something he’d never felt before or since. Prowl had climbed into the armchair with him and they’d held each other until the oven dinged that the treat was warmed through.

Once Prowl had brought home a beaten up book of music by an obscure artist for their anniversary. It was all he could afford and it had reminded him of Jazz. The unexpectedly shy mech had presented it with a small red bow and Jazz had hugged it to his chassis. They’d spent the evening playing from it, laughing at the bad songs and giggling at the good ones.

He’d never been so happy.

Then he’d held Siren. He’d known the sparklet a cycle and he would move the planet for him. He wanted to find Prowl for him and see him smile at his carrier. He wanted to snuggle into a big berth with Siren on his lap, singing to him into recharge. He wanted to see him running and playing. He wanted to take him to the park and wait until dark to watch the glitchmice with him as they plugged their long cord tails into outlets to steal the power.

_I’m trying._

He would try. He would see Prowl again and he would ask – no he would _beg_ to be in Siren’s life.

And maybe he’d get to be in Prowl’s life again too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has another 1,000 words to it, but I split it because otherwise we'd have to wait for another 1,000 to get to a nice chapter break and be able to post. Also I need to plot some more and don't want to post that bit until I've got all the hidden clues correct. This is an okay cut off point I think.
> 
> For something I named "Fluff Bingo" I'm surprisingly short on the fluff.


	15. Secret Baby 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz succeeds, fails, and receives frightening information.

The book had mentioned schedules briefly:

_Yes, you have to remember to feed at least two people now. Prepackaged cubes are your friends. Otherwise try not to forget what day it is more than twice a month._

However, Prowl was a mech who liked schedules. He liked to know exactly what he had to do that day and how to do it. It didn’t matter that he had one of the most advanced processors on the planet and could have easily remembered everything: he wanted a schedule.

It had driven his commanders insane.

So he wandered back out into the living room and found a small chart juuuust out of sparkling level with the days of the week and the time for everything.

**Morning: Take walk with Siren and watch the light cycle start. Have breakfast at home.**

**Midmorning: Drop Siren off at ASC and go to work.**

**Afternoon: Pick up Siren and get a treat at Mirrorshine’s Confections.**

**Late Afternoon: Watch “Officer Impossible” with Siren and complete paperwork**

**Evening: Dinner**

**Midevening: Bath, Story, Berth**

**Late Evening: “Predacons Rising”**

Jazz was startled into laughter. Prowl had been a secret fan of “The Predacon’s Appendices” when they’d known each other so some things hadn’t changed. That little facet into Prowl’s life strengthened his resolve. He still knew this mech.

He looked for what tomorrow would be.

**Morning: Listen to “I Am A Strong Sparkling” broadcast with Siren.**

**Midmorning: Get breakfast from one of the shops on the way.**

**Late Morning: Playgroup**

Well, Jazz didn’t know where the playgroup was, but he could follow the rest of it. Siren would be due for his dinner and then “Bath, Story, Berth.” Jazz could already hear his excited beeping increasing from his room, gaining a distressed quality.

Jazz couldn’t blame him. The last time he’d been home he’d been trapped, alone, for two cycles.

He opened the cabinet and found a lot of expired sparkling cubes and a few shelf-stable adult ones. He grabbed one of the adult ones and popped open another sparkling cube from his bag. He set them down on the low table in the living room and went to get Siren.

He was already standing with his hands on the side of the berth, eyes wide. When he caught sight of Jazz he looked excited.

When no one else followed him in, he drooped again.

“Carrier?” he asked Jazz as he lifted him out and settled him on his hip like a woven steel basket.

“I know ya miss him, sweetspark. I’m workin’ on finding him.” He’d sent messages to everyone who was…helping him with finding Prowl. Red Alert was analyzing the hotel footage and the camera’s signal. Mirage was poking through all the information he could find about the Praxian enforcers. “Let’s have some dinner, okay? Then a bath maybe.” Definitely. “An’ I’ll read ya a story.”

“Bath-story-berth!” the sparkling squealed. Did he have Prowl’s love of schedules as well?

“Yeah, come on.” He walked them into the kitchen and picked up the cube. The side of the cube claimed to be resealable and good for two lightcycles after opening. He could safely put it away if Siren didn’t finish it. At least whatever didn’t end up on the floor. Which, since this was Prowl’s place and not a hotel room, he would have to clean.

Scrap.

Wait…

A sparkling chair! It was tucked under the table exactly like a regular chair. He hurried towards it and slipped Siren inside, waiting for the hysterics.

Nothing.

Siren looked up at him expectedly _. Oh right_. He popped the lid and removed the pull tab. He handed it to Siren who immediately started to guzzle.

He’d expected a lot more push back. When he’d been a sparkling sitting still had been a lurking horror. He’d done insane things to avoid being forced to sit in one place for too long. It was one of the main reasons that no one had been surprised when he’d become a traveling musician.

In hindsight it was a little silly. Prowl had raised Siren for the last 71 vorns. Or course he loved schedules and proper table etiquette. Prowl had probably been the cybertronian-standard when it came to sparklings.

“Ya kin do this,” Jazz muttered to himself, draining an adult cube. Prowl had done all the hard work – bringing the bitlet into the world, keeping him alive, instilling manners, setting a schedule. All Jazz had to do was follow that schedule and continue on.

He looked down to where Siren was nearly done with his energon.

Step one – Fuel Sparkling – Complete!

Siren took one more gulp and then looked at the empty cube. Then he threw it with all his might across the kitchen where it skittered across the floor into the living room, leaving a trail of fuel dregs.

“BathStoryBerth!” Siren sang, lifting his arms to be picked up.

Scrapscrapscrap.

0-0-0

Jazz was now convinced that Prowl was the most accomplished creator in the universe. After the fiasco with the energon (Siren had managed to make a mess even with the chair on Jazz’s watch) he’d lifted the sticky sparkling up and squeezed them both into the washracks. It was small to begin with – just a nozzle and hose in an attachment on the ceiling – and the addition of the sparkling bath made it even smaller. 

The sparkling bath was a small basin on a stand so that creators could wash with their creations and wouldn’t have to put them on the ground and bend down. It had a number of small bath toys in it that Siren obviously considered essential for bath time since he greeted each one by name.

Jazz had selected the pre-programed temperature titled “Prowl+Siren” and turned on the solvent.

Siren had been delighted to be showered with solvent and have his toys. He was not thrilled with the idea of actually getting clean. Jazz had gotten more solvent splashed into his face than the time he’d fallen into the public baths in Kaon. Just keeping a grip on the tiny limbs was a feat. 

“Come ‘ere,” Jazz grumbled as Siren twisted this way and that to keep Jazz from wiping the rust stick and energon goo from his face and chin.

“Hot Spot go Wah Wah Wah!” Siren replied, driving the small red emergency vehicle through the suds. 

Jazz grabbed Siren’s chin in an effort to turn his face and all he got was a mini melt-down which left Siren sobbing at the betrayal in the basin, clutching his toy as if it was his only friend in the world.

Which left Jazz standing under the spray, feeling like an aft, with a dirty sparkling, in a tiny washrack.

Jazz may have had a mini meltdown himself. It took several kliks before he felt he could speak.

“Siren,” he said calmly. He held out his arms in an offer and Siren took it, lunging forwards until he was snuggled against Jazz, the metal toy jabbing painfully into Jazz’s torso.

It would take a lot more than just following Prowl’s schedule. How was he supposed to figure out how to be Prowl? He pushed the thoughts away and focused on getting through this evening first.

Since no one was really going to get clean tonight, Jazz shut off the solvent, grabbed a thick wicking mesh and wrapped Siren up. He tipped the basin out and settled him in there. 

A quick shake got most of the water off (Siren thought this was hysterical, all previous upset forgotten) and increasing his core temperature took care of the rest of it. 

He rubbed the sparkling dry. Siren wouldn’t be able to properly control his temperature for hundreds of vorns yet and would be susceptible to rust until he was well into his adult frame. Jazz was able to wipe off the worst of the mess so the bath wasn’t a total loss at least. He tossed the drying mesh into the sparkling basin to deal with later, picked Siren up and squeezed out. How was Prowl able to wash both himself and Siren? Especially considering he was much broader than Jazz and had doorwings to boot. 

So, dinner, bath, now onto berth and story. Jazz took him back to his room and turned the lights on low. Siren beeped and cooed with pleasure.

“Good, forgiven me for the wash racks? Let’s set ya down.” He placed Siren into the berth, but Siren was having none of it. He looked up with those same betrayed eyes and began to cry again.

“What? What’d I do wrong?” He picked him up again and the wailing slowed. He looked around again as if the room would give him the answers.

“BathStoryBerth!” Siren wailed again.

“We did bath!” Jazz told him as he paced, rubbing his back. “Now we – “

Oh.

 _Oh_.

The sort of rigidity he _definitely_ got from Prowl.

“Story first, I got it brightspark.” He looked around and saw a brightly colored datapad with rubber corners in a padded rocking chair. He walked over and lifted the datapad to sit down.

Once they were both in the chair Siren stopped crying. His helm thunked down and he relaxed. Jazz could feel him venting more slowly as he calmed.

“Let’s see what we got here, huh sweetspark?” He rested his helm against Siren’s smaller one and relaxed himself. Only two mistakes on his first day and it was bound to get better.

He turned on the datapad and found a list of old sparkling stories. He remembered these!

“Toot Toot,” Siren requested drowsily, tucking himself in closer. Jazz didn’t need a clarification.

“The Signal of Love, by Delta-4,” he read. “Long ago beside the great sea there lived two femmes who sailed it –“

0-0-0

Jazz finished affixing the last camera. The majority of them were pointed at Siren or the front entrance. It was lucky that Prowl lived in such a small complex. It meant a single entrance and a single window in the living room beside the door. Unless someone was ready to tunnel through the wall, there was no way to get to them. He’d asked Mirage to watch them since the mech was attending a business lunch while he inspected a nearby planet for possibly purchase. Mirage was probably grateful for something other than inane pleasantries to occupy him.

He sat down on the couch and flipped on the holovision. Maybe he would catch “Predicons Rising” for Prowl. He’d probably want to know what was happening when they found him.

He couldn’t allow himself to think any differently. He tried to focus on the show enough to take his mind off of it. Without the crushing exhaustion of earlier he would find it difficult to fall into recharge that night. 

The familiar opening music brought back memories of Prowl threatening to throw him out for trying to get “amorous” while it was on and he smiled. He settled in. There was no way he was recharging in Prowl’s room – it was too far from the door and it felt wrong to be recharging in his ex’s berth.

Halfway through the episode – still the same old plots with the misunderstood hero and the love interest – he got a comm. He was slightly annoyed because not only was it late, but he was actually starting to enjoy the show. 

He answered it.

“Jazz.”

“Mirage?” He sat up, instantly on alert.

“Check camera 4, Jazz.”

He brought up the feed and at first saw nothing. Mirage focused the camera more closely on a patch of shadows beside the building across the street. There was the faintest outline of a bot. Then, as if it knew he was watching, it faded away into the darkness.

“How long was that there?” Jazz asked furiously, rushing into Siren’s room to check on him. Nothing could have gotten past him, he’d been watching the door, but the fear was still there – irrational and overpowering.

Siren was in deep recharge, one arm wrapped around the turbofox and the other curled up by his head.

“Only a moment. I have the feed recorded on my personal terminal just in case. Jazz, we’ve found some…things.”

“What sort of things?” Why was there hesitation in Mirage’s voice? Jazz fought back the dread.

“The sort of things that made me buy a ticket back to Cybertron. I’ll be there in a week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo! Here's the bit that was supposed to be attatched to the previous chapter. The plot I promised has been pushed off until next chapter. Instead this is 2,000 words of a new parent trying to figure things out. I have to be honest, I thought this storyline wasn't going to continue. After the second chapter I was certain that I had lost interest and then for the rest of the bingo I would get a review asking about when it would be continued and I'd feel guilty. Kid!fic is always a favorite.
> 
> So one, I'm happy I got back into it! And two I'm thrilled that people still like all the random plots and one-shots and continuations! Each review and kudos is jealously hoarded and appreciated. When I have 1/2 of a chapter finished, the thing that gives me the push to do that second half is knowing that I'll get to see what you all think of it!
> 
> Be safe and take care!


	16. Disfigured Protagonist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is a rich couple's crazy creation. Prowl struggles with fitting in to the world beside his single creator. They meet at a rich school.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow a student to attend with a broken optic. It’s not safe for your mechling or for the others.”

Jazz perked up from his artful slouch at his student portal. The screen displayed exactly the sort of violent rubbish he was supposed to be into with explosions and energon soaked gladiators. He’d tilted it so the professor would see it the moment he stepped into the room.

“I’ve put an adhesive patch over it so the glass won’t spread or fall into the optic. It’s just until the end of the week when we can get an appointment,” afemme was pleading.

“We are not set up for a student with Prowl’s disfigurement-“

“Processor defect!” She shouted back. Now the other students were beginning to take notice of the argument outside the door. Jazz could juuuuust see the outline of Professor Cog’s spoiler.

“As I said, we aren’t set up for it. We cater to students who need an accelerated curriculum. One of the public learning institutions would be a better choice. The teachers are used to working with students who need extra services -“

“We were recommended to this school. Prowl’s scores on the Lexicon-Froid tests put him in the highest percentile for his age group in logic, adaptability and academics. As a school funded by the government of Iacon you cannot deny any student entry unless you can prove he cannot complete tasks set.” She got louder and it was clear she was anxious to convince him.

Jazz casually stood and sauntered over to the door. Bots scattered out of his way. 

There was something to be said about a well crafted reputation. As the rest of the class tried to look busy Jazz flung the door open.

“We ‘bout ready ta star’, den, Prof?” He deliberately exaggerated his accent, pulling as much of the low level guttermech into it as he could. Coupled with the insolent look and the beautifully crass decals he was the picture of a delinquent.

It was hard to say which one of them looked angrier. Professor Cog looked like he was swallowing a few cogs. The femme was tiny- a minibot smaller than Jazz - with a plain semi-sheen black paint that was chipping along the edges.

The mech was different. Same cheap paint in black and white, but at least half Praxian by the doorwings and obviously destined to be tall.

What made him stand out was the scarring. He had a sticky patch completely covering one optic and a cascade of cracks going down the side of his helm. 

Crisscrossing his helm from every angle were old thick welds. Attached to one side was a small blinking device. Jazz could see where the wires went directly into his processor.

His unbroken optic was glaring at Jazz as if he could burn a hole right through him. There wasn’t a drop of intimidation or reverence.

“You are Jazz of Polyhex, are you not?” he asked.

“That’s me!” Jazz grinned, pouring on the charm. It was like taking a energon warmer to try and melt a comet. The mech stared at him and then turned to Professor Cog.

“I qualify for this school under the Educational Rights Act. If you prevent me from entering for any reason you are in violation of the Act.” Jazz had never heard anything delivered so blandly. He wasn’t even  _ annoyed _ .

That seemed to put the Professor off balance. He huffed and grumbled, but eventually he had to give in. Even mechs with high level connections had to obey the law.

“Right -fine, you’ll be in my class.” 

Jazz pushed the door open wider with a grin. Anyone who could fluster a bolt-head like Cog was rating pretty high in Jazz’s book already. 

The mech nodded curtly in thanks and walked through. Jazz and the Professor followed.

“Class! This is our new student, Prowl! Prowl please have a seat,” the professor bellowed as he stomped up to the front.

The curious students had scattered and were trying to look as if they’d been sitting there the entire time.

_ Stupid, _ Jazz thought,  _ much better to own it, especially if you’re  _ **_all_ ** _ doing it. What’s he gonna do? He  _ slammed himself down in front of his portal.

Prowl -primus that name fit! - sat down at one of the portals in the back. The professor started the class without his customary grumbling and guzzling of crap energon.

It seemed he saw Prowl’s earlier words as a challenge because he started the lesson like he never had before. Information was flying past their portals almost too fast for them to read it - none of them had their adult data ports installed yet so it was all up to their processors.

He threw out questions like mad. Even the overachievers were having trouble. The only one who wasn’t was Prowl.

He had an answer for every question - often times with more information than their textbooks had provided. Jazz was checking.

This seemed to only make Cog angrier, but Prowl never wavered.

Suddenly it was the end of the day and Prowl had never stopped. It had been the strangest and tenses day of school Jazz had ever gone through. And that included the time he had been in Kaon during his creators’ charity tour and the school group he was with had gotten stuck in the rebel’s territory mid-riot.

Jazz wandered out with the rest of the class, although not as dazed as the rest. He saw Prowl standing as rigid as a pillar at the base of the front steps. The other students parted around him like he had a contagious rust, but he gave no indication that he’d noticed. It was the same forceful obliviousness that Jazz had used when people recognized and fawned over him in public. So he wandered over.

“Waiting for someone?” Jazz asked casually. Prowl went, if possible, even more rigid. 

“My creator is coming to tow me home,” he said tensely. Jazz laughed.

“She overprotective or did you get into a crash on your alt already?” He grinned, but got no response. “Prowl?”

The other mech jerked. “You speak very familiarly with a bot you don’t know,” he chastised.

“You speak like a law textbook,” Jazz shot back with no heat. 

Silence. Jazz was considering waiting until the next cycle to try and wiggle his way past the mech’s armor.

“I have never been allowed to drive in my alt mode. Due to my processor defect I am in danger of crashing. If I were to crash while driving it could result in fatal consequences.”

“Oh.” Jazz hadn’t even considered that. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m an aft. Feel free to tell me to shove it up my -“

“You are still being very familiar,” Prowl broke in.

“Well, that’s cause I wanna be familiar with you.” He paused. “Not like that.” Sometimes he had to turn the charm off. “I want to be your friend.”

Prowl stared at him. “Why?”

“Cause ya put Cogs in his place! Ya didn’t let him push ya around. Any mech like that has gotta be my friend!”

“I don’t “gotta” do anything.”

Energon warmer against a comet alright.

“I just mean that I’d like to be your friend.” Jazz softened his voice. “What you said was cool. The Professor ‘s a pretty intimidating bot.” He walked a little closer - not enough to be invading his space - and waited. 

_ Look harmless. _

Prowl didn’t respond.

The time passed and Jazz stayed calm. The difference between a good bluff and a  _ great _ bluff was being willing to walk away. If Prowl said he really wasn’t interested, Jazz would leave him be. 

It was an eternity of both of them standing there, staring at the library across the street. A large blue, red and grey librarian was moving among the stacks of data pads and terminals. A gaggle of sparklings ran past him.

Finally - “I have never had a friend.”

It was so starkly honest and vulnerable. Jazz subtly pressed a hand to his own spark and hid a wince. 

“I have. I like them. I’d like to be your friend.”

Prowl was slow to reply again.

“What would that entail?” He asked carefully.

“Whatever we want. Do you like music?”

Prowl shook his head tightly.

“What about movies?”

“I enjoyed Launcher’s latest publication about his findings on Epsilon-56.” It wasn’t said with the same flat tone as before, but it hadn’t reached a conversational tone yet. It was too tentative.

“I haven’t seen that one, but I watched the follow up to his and Gravelcrusher’s journey to the core of that purple planet.”

“That was good as well.” Well look at that! They were nearly talking and it only took half a lifetime.

“Another thing you can do with friends is visit,”Jazz said casually.

“Are you asking me to visit you?”

“Or I can visit you. What do you think?” The tiny form of Prowl’s creator was coming up along the side of the school.

“Yes, I would like that.” He finally looked Jazz in the optics and it was like being struck by lightning.

“Me-me too. Yeah.” Jazz nodded stupidly. Prowl’s creator had arrived and was standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at them suspiciously with her servos on her hips. Jazz tried to grin down charmingly at her, but she only squinted harder.

“I will contact you to set a date. Is that agreeable?”

“Yes. Definitely.” Prowl waited. Jazz stared. His creator was looking at both of them suspiciously now.

“Your comm?” Prowl asked.

“Oh, right.” They exchanged comm numbers and Prowl walked down the steps. He transformed when he got to the bottom and waited. His creator glared at Jazz for another moment and then transformed as well. She engaged a magnetic tow and they pulled away.

As they pulled out Jazz waved. It felt silly, but also kinda good.

He got a message as Prowl turned the corner out of sight.

  
_ See you tomorrow _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! How did this come about? I was thinking one day while driving to work about doing a meet cute with the two while they were in elementary school - the whole you are my best friend and later we will be soulmates. I was thinking, man, I really don't like teenage/high school AUs. I'll never do one.
> 
> Next thing I know I'm frantically typing this on my phone under my desk before work. I might do other one-shots in this universe, but otherwise it should stand alone as a cute first meeting.


	17. Scandal Induced Marriage 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Prowl kindness is always a trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mention of sexual assault

Prowl, it turned out, could not ‘come with him’ even if he wanted to. He vaguely remembered drinking energon at some point – so Meister must have brought him some, but is was nowhere near enough to get him back on his pedes after so long without.

One of the facts of the Underground was that energon, when you got it, was in small sips and half eaten energon goodies. He’d been working to keep his tank above the survival level by taking whatever small scraps he could get his hands on.

When he’d been dragged from Trannis’s lair he’d been nearly empty and only a few steps away from a shut down. A shut down that, thanks to modern advances in medicine would have kept him in stasis for vorns until he actually offlined.

That was how he’d met Oil Cap. Stumbling through a very old, very unstable tunnel he’d stepped on a mech whose fuel levels had dropped so low he had been in stasis for six vorns and running out of time. 

Prowl had only been in the underground a couple of weeks and was still getting used to everything, so the sight of another mech on the ground, near death, had sprung him into action. He’s pulled one of his own tubes free and poured his energon into Oil Cap’s tank before even thinking about it. Back then he’d thought there was no greater hunger than having your fuel level at a quarter percent.

Now, as Meister pulled Prowl’s arm over his shoulder, he was happy just to be at 10%.

“Don’t worry ‘bout keeping ya pedes under ya. I can lift twice ya weight.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Meister grunted as he shifted the majority of Prowl’s bulk to rest on his back and shoulders.

“Why do you have so much towing and lifting ability if you’re a minibot?” Would he ever learn to keep his vocalized muted?

“Huh? Oh. My creator wanted help in the mines. He knew a minibot sparkling would fit better so he sparked up my carrier. Then he outfitted me with some mods and new parts to lift the rocks and supplies.” 

Prowl had long since lost their direction – something he never got used, but it had been the first sign of fuel neglect when he’d come down.

“That’s…” Something was wrong with the blithe way Meister had said it. There was a thin shell of false cheer over something darker. 

“Did your carrier want to be sparked up?” Prowl asked, afraid of the answer.

Meister turned stiff beside him and stopped. He gave Prowl a long, hard look.

“No. He didn’t.”

0-0-0

Prowl couldn’t work up the courage to speak again after that. He stumbled alongside Meister, aware of the swirling emotions in the dangerous mech beside him.

He might have been a sadistic hacker, but he might have also loved his carrier. Prowl had watched enough criminals – terrible bots, the kind that the public doesn’t want to admit exist – beg for one last chance to apologize to a carrier or creator. It had been baffling to Prowl at first. It wasn’t until…

He flinched from the memory and tripped over Meister’s pedes.

Eventually he’d understood.

They finally arrived at a door that was sealed with rubber around the edges. Meister pressed a button – not even a code, just a button – and the door recessed into the floor.

It was a Polyhexian bathhouse in miniature. Like everything in the underground it was dim – light was far too expensive to light up a bathing room. But the low light wasn’t out of place in a Polyhexian bath. Prowl had seen the pictures in his textbook at school. There was the solvent shower in the corner with dim glowing tiles – clear and lit up from underneath – and nozzles for different soaps and waxes. Everything was in different colors of neon with actual neon piping running along the top edge of the wall.

A round, deep oil bath was dug into the center of the room. Prowl could see golden oil bubbling slowly through a filter system. 

The back wall was full of shelves of extra waxes and even _more_ medical supplies. Boxes of medical solvent and patches. He could see pain blockers and tubes of high energy jellied energon.

He stared at the wall, something nagging at him.

“Shower first, Bondmate,” Meister said pulling him towards the corner. 

_No, please no_. Prowl shook. The memory of his time in the washracks at Trannis’s dungeon was rising up before him. The fear filled his sparkcase and threatened to smother him. He remembered the pain of the spray and the laughter of the guards. The wandering servos as he struggled. 

Watching his own energon, what little he’d had left, streaming down the drain.

“The patches will come off!” he said desperately, trying to drag his pedes without Meister noticing.

“Nah, they’re moisture resistant. Look, I even have a stool for you. Let’s get ya down on it.” He lowered Prowl onto it. “Got a favorite soap or wax?” He gestured to the nozzles and looked back to Prowl as if this really was a bathhouse and they were just two mechs.

Prowl couldn’t get his vocalizer to work. He stared with wide frozen optics at Meister. The mech took a step towards him and he flinched hard enough to clatter off the stool. He hunched there, on the cool, rough tiles, barely able to see the colors as coolant rushed to his overheated optics.

He wanted to beg, but he couldn’t get his vocalizer to turn on. Meister’s hands landed on his upper arms and he cried out expecting a strike, a gouge, something. He was just gently lifted back onto the stool.

A servo cupped the back of his helm.

“I ain’t gonna hurt ya, Monochrome. You’re my bondmate now. Tha’ means I gotta take care of ya. Let’s get all this filth from tha’ slag-sucker Trannis off. Then I’ll see ta ya rust spots and get ya in the oil bath.” 

Prowl said nothing. There was nothing he could say to make a difference. The kindness was one of the oldest traps he knew of and it would only last until he did something wrong. Either Meister would continue to play this game or he would give up and start – it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. Maybe if he thought it enough he’d believe it.

Meister reached up and turned the solvent on.

It didn’t matter.

A spray caught his pede and he flinched away like it was a live wire.

It didn’t matter.

“Let’s start with warm first, huh? Tell me when you want it hotter.” Warmth spread over his shin and up onto his knee joints and hip. Meister switched to the other leg, rinsing. It was a low setting with a broad spray to soften it even more and Prowl couldn’t stop his cables from loosening and relaxing. Even before the incident at Trannis’s lair he’d dreaded the showers. The jets of water had dented his weakened plating and stung all of the raw, rusted patches where he couldn’t get properly dry.

He sprayed Prowl’s frame down and then got a soft cloth to wipe down his helm and neck. He quietly narrated his actions the entire time.

“I’m gonna get this bit here,” he was saying as he scraped at a spot of dried energon just below Prowl’s shoulders. Probably from when he’d gouged out that port, but it could have been from even earlier when Fender had jumped in front of the cargo truck. “And now let’s get some soap on here.” The solvent stopped and he could hear another knob turning. He turned his helm slightly and saw Meister holding the cloth under one of the nozzles. A thin blue soap poured out.

“I’m gonna start at ya helm this time,” Meister warned before he gently laid two towel wrapped digits against his helm. He moved them in small circles until he’d covered the whole area, avoiding his face. Then he rinsed. Then he worked his way down the front of Prowl’s frame until he was kneeling in front, rubbing the now filthy cloth across a pede. He exchanged the cloth and did the same to the other side, asking him to stand so he could continue down the back.

 _How strange_ , Prowl thought, _four vorns ago I didn’t even want people to see me fueling_. He’d gone hours without fuel, too shy to stop and get something to drink. He’d been called both private and stuck up when the truth was that he had been unbearably self conscious. And here he was, clinging to an overhead pipe while a mech he’d known two cycles washed him like a sparkling. How strange.

Meister rinsed him again.

“I’m gonna try and get under ya plating to where the rust is. Might sting a bit,” Meister warned as he angled the water to mist under the plating of his side. It did. “The rust’s spreading, but the oil bath will stop it. Might need to clean this out better later though.” Prowl shuddered at the idea, but did nothing.

It didn’t matter.

“That’s better. Let’s get ya into the bath now. Hold on tight, Bondmate.” He wrapped an arm around Prowl’s waist again and walked him over to the edge of the tub.

It looked deep. Deep enough to drown in.

“Sit and we’ll wiggle ya in.” He was helped until he was sitting in a jumble beside the pool, his legs folded beside him. There was a click-clack beside him as Meister closed all his vents, but the one in his mouth. Prowl did the same and felt his temperature rise slightly.

Meister put a servo on the edge and lowered himself in without creating a single ripple in the oil.

“Impressive,” Prowl said before he could stop himself. Meister smirked at him.

“Thanks. It’s in the job description.” Prowl tilted his head in confusion, but Meister didn’t explain further. He reached out and put one servo on Prowl’s side and one on his leg joint. “ Legs first.” He kept Prowl from diving head first into the oil with one hand and moved his legs in with the other. It was amazing: silky smooth and warm. Prowl moved to make it easier for Meister to pull him in.

The oil rushed through him and lapped over his shoulders as his pedes touched the bottom. It was beyond bliss.

Meister chuckled and Prowl realized he was making small noises of contentment – like a turbofox being stroked. He tried to speak but couldn’t figure out what words he wanted. He tried to take a step but found he was still too weak.

“I’ll help ya stay up, Monochrome. You just soak.” Prowl nodded and offlined his optics. He forced his processor to cycle down until it wasn’t draining his fuel quite so swiftly. Meister moved them slowly through the oil, helping it slip between cracks and coat the rust patches thoroughly. Halfway through the second circuit around the bath, Meister gently placed a hand on his neck and coaxed him helm down until he rested on Meister’s shoulder. That was even nicer. Then his processor popped up again.

He lifted his head and met Meister optics to visor. That wasn’t right.

“You’re shorter than me,” Prowl said dumbly, staring. Meister laughed and it was a surprisingly clean sound.

“Oh, yeah, look down.” He looked. Through the oil he could see Meister’s pedes hovering above the bottom of the bath. “I can reverse the polarity of my magnets. It’s not strong enough to do usually, but in the oil it’s easier to keep my balance. I can increase them and go higher,” he grew several inches, “or shorter,” he shrunk until his visor met the top of the oil. He rose again and smiled at Prowl, oil dripping down his lips and chin. He wondered if it was finding its way into those fine cracks along his cheek.

It was an affecting image. The dim lights caught the glint of the oil sharply, and outlined Meister’s features. The demonstration brought a single thought to the forefront of Prowl’s mind: Meister was all that was holding Prowl up and he could just as easily drag him down.

Meister started a low hum as they moved and Prowl could hear it through the water, it vibrated his doorwings to create a double melody as his wings picked it up first through the oil and then his audials through the air. 

When it was time to get out Meister brought Prowl to the edge and climbed out first, holding Prowl up against the side to keep him from sinking below the oil He knelt down and hooked his arms under Prowl’s, heaving him out as easily as if he were a bag of datapads.

They stayed there, Meister standing behind him, giving him a place to lean against, Prowl cross legged on the ground, as the excess oil drained away.

Prowl cast his gaze around the room, optics wide to take in as much light as possible. Besides having all the trappings of a Polyhexian bath house – low lights, inset bath, the nozzles of luxury soaps and waxes, there wasn’t much to it. Still it nagged at him. He was missing something.

“Let’s get you back to ya berth before you fall into recharge on the floor, darling.” Meister lifted him to his pedes and they made their way back through the endless hallways.

“Here ya are.” Meister moved the heated blanket out of the way and helped Prowl lay down. He didn’t resist. Who cared what he looked like now? Any lingering self-consciousness from his youth had long been worn away by the Underground. And whatever Meister wanted to do to his “bondmate” was quite out of Prowl’s ability to prevent. The blanket was draped carefully over him and Meister turned to leave.

“Thank you.” He froze in the doorway.

“You’re welcome, Bondmate.” He flipped the light off and the door closed.

It didn’t matter.

He might die the next day, he might be kept alive for vorns. The longer Meister played this game the farther Ebonite and Fender got. The less trail they would leave. He couldn’t stop Meister, but he could buy time.

He offlined his optics and initiated recharge, but it was slow to come. Something was nagging at him. There was something he’d missed.

He knew his processor was working slower. Conclusions that would have been reached in a quarter of a klik now took cycles. The information had to move through his processor like contaminated energon through a filtration system. The sinister nature of the medical supplies had finally percolated through his processor.

A hacker was a lot like an assassin in ways. They came in, did their job, and left the parts where they fell. Why would Meister need so much medical supplies? Who had he been keeping alive? There was enough supplies to patch together dozens. Or maybe he should be wondering how long Meister had kept those unknown mechs alive…and how many times he had needed to fix them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this story grabbed me again. I wrote the ending (and it was sooo much fun) and then I realized that WAS NOT THE END and wrote another ending after that because I wanted to complete Prowl's character arc. I know, I was just as surprised as you that he was getting a character arc. This was supposed to be fluffy h/c nonsense. Now I just need to finish writing the middle!
> 
> The plot also took a major shift thanks to some of your comments! I started this with the plan of "Prowl is bought by shadowy figure who it nice who heals him and they live happily ever after." Then plot started to creep in. Then the plot messed with the original intent and things got screwy. I was trying to write around it, in a bind when the perfect solution hit me! So we are full steam ahead here. Still trying to balance Prowl's defeated outlook with my inner voice going "But why doesn't he just DO something" without it becoming a plot hole.
> 
> Prowl here is still very much Sad Beaten Down Prowl. The next chapter he starts to perk up a bit and try to go places. He doesn't get there, but he tries. Poor Jazz, dealing with a mobile and determined Prowl is going to be tough. Especially with all those secrets you're keeping. Dun dun dun DU~UN!


	18. Shorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippets of stories that are either one-shots or don't fit into the main storyline.

Something Smolders Snippet

0-0-0

On the left Ironhide was cycling his optics on and off. On the right Optimus was staring, his mouth half open.

“And so, ya see, sirs, that’s what happened.” Jazz held his hands out and shrugged his shoulders. “No one got hurt – that wasn’t already a criminal – and we managed to rendezvous! I’m callin’ it a win.” He tentatively pumped a fist in the air, but no one seemed to share his upbeat outlook. At least his optic was starting to repair itself so he wasn’t faced with 31 pairs of shocked superiors.

“Your mech turns into a dragon?” Ironhide asked Optimus, dumbfounded.

“It’s a very useful ability when fighting Decepticons,” Optimus defended. “Your mech was sneaking around the enemy bases _and_ _you didn’t know about it?”_

“You try getting him to tell you where he’s going! I sent him to meet up with your mech and he just got…detoured.” Ironhide was waving his arms around as if he could explain Jazz’s ditzy processor with enough flapping.

“Sirs,” Prowl interrupted them before they could really get going. “We need to focus on what is most important. The “Warlord” Gouge, formally Price Gouge, has been confirmed as a Decepticon ally. This is becoming more and more common. It is no longer just large corporations and military units that are joining. Megatron is actively recruiting from the civilian population. I propose a small task force is comprised specifically to discover these instances.”

Coming back to the seriousness of their situation, Optimus nodded. “Good idea. You’ll want one of your tacticians on it I suppose? And some of our frontliners. If the group is attacked far from a base we won’t be able to send help in time.”

“Agreed. I actually suggest myself as far as tactical is concerned. I will be able to alter plans quickly in the field if need be and I would like a broader understanding of our situation.”

“And you believe you’ll find that in the field?” Optimus questioned.

“Yes.”

“Then your suggestions are approved. I will review our soldiers for suitability.” 

Jazz was jealous. All Prowl had to do was suggest something and his boss said “okay, what do you need?” No harrumphing, no complaining, no “Jazz are you out of your processor that is insane”?

“Wait a minute!” Ironhide stopped them. “This is a joint effort so we’ll send you some of our bots. We have more warriors than you do. And you’ll need someone who can do scout work, maybe even a technician too.”

“Someone from my department too,” Jazz said, working it out in his head. Someone with infiltration skills would be able to get into places a group of warriors wouldn’t.

“Excellent,” Optimus said, “I’m sure Prowl will look forward to your continued partnership.” He smiled.

“Ah – wait, I didn’ say it had ta be me!” Although actually that wasn’t a bad idea. “But, now that you mention it that is a sound plan.” It would be nice to be doing real field work again. Ironhide might complain that he went off the rails, but he’d been cooped up in Headquarters for so long…

“I agree,” Ironhine rumbled, sitting back and looking satisfied. Optimus nodded again.

Prowl beside him was smiling ever so slightly. Jazz darted a look at him and smiled as well. It would be fun working together and…maybe more.

“Well, if that is all, Jazz and I will continue onwards toward Iacon.”

Optimus looked confused. “You aren’t in one of the hideouts along the Trade path?”

Prowl stiffened and shifted slightly. Jazz could read the sudden bashfulness in his field.

“No, I – ah – I felt that since my den was closer and safer that we could come here and recuperate briefly before moving on.” Well that was a lie. From the way Optimus Prime’s optics widened he caught it too. He spoke, clearly confused, but didn’t mention it.

“Well…if that was your plan I wish you luck and a quick journey. It’s quite far actually –“

The Prime stopped suddenly, a sly look blooming across his face.

“Oh, and Jazz? Who did your detail work? You’re looking very… _shiny_.”

0-0-0

First Time Snippet

0-0-0

“Prowl!” Jazz burst through the door like a flood and didn’t stop until he’d swept Prowl up and onto their berth. His lover’s wiggling excitement was enough to push all thoughts of work from his mind and he leaned up for a kiss. It was returned enthusiastically, if a touch distracted.

“Hello Jazz,” Prowl said, trying to settle underneath him more comfortably.

“Guess what I got!” Jazz was starting to bounce now which was probably not very good for the berth, old as it was.

“It looks like data storage. Excellent find, we need those in tactical,” Prowl said straight faced.

“Prowl!” Jazz laughed, slapping his shoulder. “It’s a music file! Blaster gave it to me!”

“New music?” He perked up. While Prowl didn’t understand the lyrics sometimes, a lot of the human music was quite good.

“Old music,” Jazz corrected and then leaned it to whisper in Prowl’s audial. “It’s our waltz, Prowler.”

Prowl stared at him in shock, but it didn’t stop a shiver of anticipation from going through his frame.

Their waltz.

He had very deliberately forgotten about their waltz. He had to. Everyone had something from the old days they didn’t think about for fear it would drag them into a dark place. A place they would need help getting out of.

Their waltz.

“Put it on,” he ordered, standing up.

“Wha’ - ya don’ want ta save it?” Jazz teased as he twirled away. Prowl stalked across the room and wrapped his arm around Jazz’s waist, pulling him tight against him.

“Put it on, Jazz.”

Music floated out from the speakers in the room. Their music.

They moved. It wasn’t enough space, but it was perfect. Prowl decided he would play it in the hanger and dance with this mech in front of everyone someday soon. For now this room was enough.

Jazz’s optics sparkled behind his visor and his venting sped up, trying to compensate for the building heat. Prowl laid a servo against his back plates – they were so smooth – just to feel the shift of the gears and cables underneath as they moved back and forth.

Jazz wound his digits together behind Prowl’s helm and gently stroked as the music rose up and down like tides. The world was filled with Jazz and Jazz’s joy. Prowl kissed him again, gently and distractingly. Jazz pressed against Prowl and tilted his hips, Prowl moving in perfect synch to match him.

Prowl pivoted and swung Jazz up and around just a bit too fast and they nearly toppled over. Jazz laughed and it was the laugh of his younger self – free and happy. He pressed his face against Prowl’s neck and gasped. He was shivering with emotion now, urging Prowl faster as the music sped up. Prowl could hear it getting louder as Jazz turned up the volume. It shook the room.

Prowl spun him again, turning him around and pulling him tight against his chest. Jazz was practically keening as they separated and came back together. The music built to a crescendo and then –

-and then they swayed in the aftermath. Jazz lifted one arm gracefully and Prowl followed it, stroking over the smooth metal and threading their fingers together. Prowl stepped back and forth slowly as the music gentled and Jazz leaned his helm back to rest on Prowl’s shoulder, trusting Prowl to guide his pedes and hold him up. They softly copied each other’s movements until the music ended with a final rise and fall. Then they stood in the silence of their room, sparks still spinning wildly. Prowl pressed his lips against Jazz, moisture building up in the corners of his optics. It was a perfect moment.

“Again?”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was feeling a bit sluggish with all the other stories and decided to do tiny continuations of these two stories. I don't think they needed continuations and they're some of the ones that came out and I said "Perfect. It all goes together" instead of "This is so clunky, where's the plot?" which is what I say to most of the other ones. However, the little snippets came and I decided to share. There will probably be more at some point of the other stories. Happy Turkey Day US readers!


	19. Scandal Induced Marriage 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl realizes that no matter how far down he goes he can't outrun his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THERE IS CONTEMPLATION OF SUICIDE AND A NEAR ATTEMPT. Prowl is in a very dark place and his thoughts reflect that. This will probably be the darkest chapter of this story and of the entire fic.

It was not real. Prowl didn’t bother to lift his hand to reach out and check. He’d had these delusions when he’d first come into the underground. He would wake to the faces of his squad or the walls of his apartment. Once he’d been certain that he had fallen asleep at his desk again. He’d woken to find the floor had collapse beneath him and he was being wedged upright in the hole. A half-full cube by his bedside was no surprise.

After a few moment he realized it wasn’t an illusion, but a trap. Prowl wanted to laugh. What a pathetic trap from someone so feared. 

He twitched under the heated mesh and flexed his still tingling digits. He moved his legs and realized something –

He could probably stand if he tried. He checked his fuel levels – 25 percent?! So some time during the dark cycle – was it the dark cycle? His chronometer had long stopped working – he’d fallen into the trap and refueled. Slag.

Prowl pushed himself upright on shaking arms. Something was wrong. He’d functioned at 15% before. He’d been at 17% when he’d gone out with Fender and managed. All of a sudden his frame decided it needed be at fuel level 100 to function?

He slide his legs over until his pedes touched the ground, noticing the texture for the first time. It wasn’t, as he’d first thought, bare, chipped metal. It was smooth and even. Whoever had created these rooms had taken the time to sand down and then melt the floor then sand again until it was smooth as liquid.

Prowl looked around with new eyes. The walls were also smooth, but had crystals and other minerals pressed into them like tiles. It had low shelves and cabinets running along the bottom like a sparkling’s playroom. On some of the shelves he could make out boxes, but in the dimness he couldn’t read the engraving on the sides and he didn’t want to waste the fuel he had on increasing his optics’ dark vision. He needed to go investigate, but he’d never be able to walk. So, with only a small amount of hesitation, he lowered himself to the floor and crawled. Even if he heard Meister coming he wouldn’t be able to make it back to the berth in time, but the risk of Meister finding him was worth knowing what was in those boxes.

As he made his way over he learned even more about the room. He found grommets in the ground where someone must have anchored a rug, years ago. The holes were old. When he wiggled his finger into them it came away covered in dust. Who had the money to buy a rug in the underground? And who would bother with the extravagance in this darkness?

He reached the shelves and leaned back on his heels to look, increasing his optic input just slightly. The dust around the boxes was disturbed and the boxes themselves were new without the layer of gray that coated everything else.

He pulled it carefully off the shelf and slowed its fall the best he could. He opened it and inside he found five cubes of unopened energon to match the sixth on his beside table. He tried to figure out why that was important, but his processor was slow. If he wanted to return to his previous level of functioning he would need more fuel. He reached in, not really caring anymore if the fuel was a trap anymore, and fought to open one. With his depleted strength it was a battle and he mostly tore it, but even as the fuel dripped down his digits he felt triumphant. He tipped it back and guzzled as fast as he could. He waited for it to circulate and the energy to reach his processor. He found himself craving the feeling again of data streaming past him, sorting itself into nice neat boxes. If he could just –

He purged. His tanks heaved violently as his body rejected the fuel.

Slag! He took slow ventilations and tried to hold very still as his tanks settled. He was right back where he started.

He pressed his helm against the sharp edge of the shelf. It didn’t matter. Even a quick processor wouldn’t give him the muscle to escape from someone like Meister. The small bot had easily twice the strength he should have and minibots were strong for their size to begin with.

He should try to hide the evidence of his purge and crawl back to the berth. Maybe Meister would be angry, maybe he wouldn’t notice. It didn’t matter.

He tried to crumple the now empty disposable cube in his hand. But he couldn’t.

Because while the cube itself was flimsy plastic, made for easy transportation, the lid –thin and sharp – was made of metal.

And so, Prowl went from trying desperately to get as much fuel as possible to figuring out the best way to drain it all away.

He could avoid whatever horrors Meister was going to visit on him, protected the people he’d helped, and finally get out of the Underground. Surely he’d done enough penance? Surely, surely he wouldn’t be blamed for skipping out early. And if he got to the Well or the Allspark or whatever waited and he was turned away, he would just find a way to continue.

He stared down at the edge. Death meant saving people. It was a messy way to die, but there was a chance he’d be gone before Meister arrived. Would he stop him or kill Prowl himself? He was impossible to read.

He lifted the metal lid. Yes. This was the best choice.

A messy death… He stopped

_“-the degenerates that offer nothing to society and then, when THEY tire of it they find some painless way to extinguish their spark and leave behind a mess –“_

Prowl’s hands froze.

_No, no I’m not like them, I’m not a degenerate, syphoning the fuel of society. I’m not –_

He dropped the lid.

Even here, the farthest away he could get, their words still reached him.

He knew they were wrong. He knew. And yet here he was, still listening to them, frozen and unable to protect those who were redeeming him _because of their words_.

He was still failing. 

He could never get out.

No, mechs like him didn’t deserve to be rescued. After everything he’d done? He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t.

 _They do_ , whispered some dark part of his processor. He reached for the lid that had fallen into the puddle of energon. The bots he needed to protect were worth it.

The door opened and before he could turn his head Meister was on him. He struggled before he even knew what he was struggling for and heard a clink as Meister hurled the lid across the room.

No! Now Prowl thrashed like a caught turbo fox. He was larger, he should be able to use his size as leverage. Even the strongest bot was still answerable to physics.

It was like trying to fight a pillar of the Temple. Nothing Prowl did could move him from where he was crouched over him, pinning him in place. He threw his helm back and managed to knock it into Meister hard enough to send his helm ringing.

“Shh, shhh, calm, calm,” Meister was croaking, even as Prowl caught him in the back with a pede. Meister curled more tightly around him and tangled their legs together.

It didn’t last long. Prowl had burnt through enough fuel in the one struggle that soon he was limp and dizzy again. Fuel alarms were going off, warning him that he was dipping below 20% again.

“Le’s git ya outta here ‘n someplace Ah kin see.”

He kicked one leg aimlessly as Meister lifted him up. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t get out. He’d been fooling himself these past vorn, thinking everything was his decision. It didn’t matter what he did, he would never be able to outrun it.

_“-degenerates of society in need of smelting –“_

_“-leave behind a mess –“_

_Prowl saw himself nodding, so long ago, looking up and agreeing with it all._

Meister was a distant noise in the background as his processor roared with memories.

“Frag frag frag Ah’m ‘n idiot.”

“-knew he was smart –“

“-they gonna –“

They were moving through the hallways at lightning speed, but Prowl had his optics off. Only the swiftly shifting air currents told him where they were going. They were very strong air currents…

Light. Prowl didn’t see it. He felt it. Warmth on his plating like he was standing in full sunlight in the middle of a crystal park. He onlined his optics.

It was a small living room – startlingly normal. There was a holoscreen set into one wall – very old and bulky, no where near as large as most of the ones above ground – and various couches and chairs. A table with a remote and a few datapads stood in front. Most unusually it was almost completely lit.

Meister walked over and gently set him on the couch.

“Show me where,” he commanded, kneeling and looking him over with an unfamiliar urgency and turning his arms this way and that.

“Where?”

“Where did ya cut yer lines. Ah need ta stop it.” Prowl titled his head.

“I didn’t.” Meister looked pained.

“Ah’m not – Ah’m not mad. Yer mah bondmate, remember? Jus’ show me where so Ah can ge’ it fixed.”

Soft hands were running up and down his frame, getting more and more coated in sticky energon.

“I didn’t,” he said again, struggling to put words together through the exhaustion. “It’s purged. I was – I took too much.”

Meister started at him. Then with a flick, he took off his visor and met Prowl optic to optic.

He had blue optics, pale as starlight. The cracks on his cheek ran up to curl around his left optic like scrollwork.

“Say i’ again,” he demanded.

“I didn’t.” Meister shuddered slightly and slumped down to the floor, dropping his helm next to Prowl’s thigh.

“Primus.” He shook himself. “Primus. Ah’ll ge’ ya anotha cube. Ah’ve been addin’ something fer ya. Drink more’n ya kin handle an’ ya make yaself sick.” He stood up and Prowl noted that his legs were shaking. Prowl followed him and was surprised to notice that he wasn’t losing time anymore.

 _My processor isn’t restarting_ , he thought _, I’m thinking again_. The terror that had been clouding his thoughts had retreated. The world was finally in focus in a way it hadn’t been for…he didn’t even know how long. He was able to follow things logically again. And it was odd because not only did he realize how bad it had gotten but he was starting to remember how well his processor used to function, even before the Precinct had paid for the upgrades.

 _I am trapped_ , he realized, _but maybe I’ll find a way out. I did before._

0-0-0

Meister brought him a cube and Prowl noticed there was residue in the bottom.

“Jus’ anti-nausea and some trace minerals. Straight energon ‘s hard on the tanks.” He lifted it to his lips and took a swallow. The taste was familiar. Meister must have treated the one on his bedside as well. It was also a much smaller portion size than a typical cube, only a third of the way full. “Jus’ drink i’ slow.” He stepped back with his hands on his hips and walked up to the holoscreen. “We don’t have many channels down here, but I still got a subscription to BotBox Movies. Do you wan’ a movie or music?

Want? That wasn’t part of his world anymore. A habit he’d long been broken of by other bots. What did he want? Prowl didn’t know if there was anything left in him to want. He remained silent and Meister turned on soft music.

Prowl heard the door open and close again, but he stayed slumped on the couch.

Meister…he was inconsistent. He was a hacker of the highest degree, but he had tended to Prowl’s wounds. He threatened Prowl and then seemed concerned that Prowl had sliced his lines. A shell personality breaking down? A talented actor forgetting his role?

Prowl sipped at the fuel. It seemed to be staying down well enough. Before he could have run an analysis on it, but the specialized mods took more fuel than he was ingesting. And what did it matter if it was poison? He had no other choice for fuel.

The door opened again and a cloth was thrust into his hand.

“I’ll get ya pedes if ya get the rest.”

Then Meister, feared hacker and well known sadist, the mech everyone said was behind the assassination of the last Prime, knelt and began to wipe purged energon from a degenerate’s pedes.

0-0-0

Meister had provided a bowl of warm solvent to dip the rags in and by the time they were both done it was a different color. Prowl was almost sad to set his own wash rag down and allow Meister to carry them away. It had felt strangely good to be able to wipe himself down, even if he kept hitting the rust spots and wincing.

Meister had been extremely careful around his rust eaten shins, remarking that they might have to replace the plating entirely. Which, along with the rest of the information his processor had been storing, but not analyzing, made Prowl change his assessment of the situation.

It was a reasonable assumption that Meister had not bought his debt – for probably a very high price – just to torture him and dispose of his frame. Meister could have any number of bots in the Underground where their disappearances wouldn’t be noticed. But he might have wanted a captive companion.

Even if Prowl managed to escape there was nowhere in the Underground he would be safe from both Trannis and Meister. And most people in the Underground followed the strange set of laws that governed it, such as it was. Bots like the femmes that worked in Reverse’s brothel wouldn’t have thought to question it. Most would have been easily manipulated by the kindness/cruelty into not questioning their situation.

Prowl had to admit that the show Meister was putting on was convincing even to him – and he’d been through it before. 

If that was all Meister wanted, then Prowl didn’t have to worry about Fender and Baelwing or Chopper or Oil Cap. If it wasn’t, he would have to take precautions. Just in case Meister did choose to stroll through his “bondmate’s” processor. For all Prowl knew, it was foreplay to him.

With his processor finally clear and fueled enough to do it, he wrote the code that would send his memory banks into self-destruct once Meister went looking for names and faces. Then he found himself looking to the rest of the room. Meister would be back any moment.

It was not as plain as he’d first thought. The table rested on four enormous crystals which, if real, would have paid Prowl’s salary for half a vorn. A large chunk of what looked to be cooled organic magma was holding up a row of data pads. The frame around the holoscreen was granite. And just as in the other rooms the walls had been carefully smoothed. Even the low ceiling was smooth.

The datapads on the small table caught his attention again. Three of them looked like plain gray programmable data pads, the sort that bot brought home work on or downloaded the latest game to. The fourth was a specialty data pad, the kind new novels were published on so that the bots reading them would further advertise the book. It was a florid lime green color with dark teal accents. It looked terribly familiar, but Prowl couldn’t place it.

He wasn’t surprised with the damage his addled meddling had done when he’d tried to delete enough of his short term memory in Trannis’s cell. His fuel levels were still hovering below 40% and he wasn’t willing to up it just to go trawling through his memory banks.

So he slowly stood up and started walked over to pick it up. He used the low table and the chairs to carry himself over to the strange data pad, only stumbling a few time. Once he was within range he bent down and flipped it on, reading the title.

It was the latest Squardon novel by Quickglyph. His coworkers had been obsessed with the series. He checked the date – it was only published a few weeks ago. They must have published dozens of new novels for the series in the time since he’d been down here. Something so innocuous somehow hit harder than he’d expected.

Strongarm had been an avid reader, though she claimed it was just to keep up with the others.

He fiddled with the others all in various states of disrepair. One had a cracked screen and a long burn mark going up one side. He tried to turn it on, but it only flickered oddly. He would have dismissed it, but the static started to form a pattern. He stared, trying to recognize it. It seemed so familiar…

“PUT THAT DOWN!” Suddenly it was ripped out of his servos and Prowl was on the ground on his servos, trembling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prowl reached rock bottom in chapter two and is now going upwards, but doesn't realize it. He is starting to come back to himself thanks to fuel, rest, medical attention, and kindness. Meister is acting so strange...did anyone pick up on how often he left the room? Prowl still doesn't trust him and is trying to work out how both sides of this mysterious mech work together. Meister is definitely trying to keep Prowl under his thumb, but why?
> 
> Jazz as a character is usually black or African-American coded. Since I don't use African American English I didn't feel like I had a good enough handle to write in that dialect beside the small bits that crop up like leaving off the end sound. So when Jazz is very scared after discovering Prowl and slipping into a stronger dialect? That is all from Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."
> 
> This story and this chapter in particular deal with a very serious topic. So I'm going to mention here that there are many hotlines to call if you are feeling depressed or like you want to hurt yourself and you feel like you can't talk to anyone in your life. Even if you just feel overwhelmed. Don't let fear or embarrassment stop you from calling if you need to. Don't be afraid to ask for a different person if you don't jive with someone. Don't be afraid to talk to someone all night if you have to.
> 
> I never intended for this story to go in this direction and so I was unprepared for the heavy themes it has started to explore. I can say however that:  
> There will be no character deaths  
> Prowl gets better  
> Jazz is a good guy (I know, surprise!) who will help Prowl  
> Be ready for an ending where Prowl learns that he is loved and cared for and gets to ride off into the sunset with his new lover (who does not take advantage of Prowl when he cannot give full informed consent)
> 
> I am not a fan of ambiguous heroes so the last one holds true for the entirety of the fic.
> 
> Now, I'm going to go try and work on fluffy baby robot stories (yes, more than one) to renew my energy.


	20. I hate you WAIT I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the NEST base on Diego Garcia, miracles start happening and the Autobots tell the complicated love story of two mechs lost to the war. It's actually very fluffy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for future discussion of past character deaths. But everything works out in the end.

Before the war the number of Cybertronians who had seen Orion Pax cry was too large to count. He had hidden behind a stack of boxes on his first day at the docks and bawled when the foreman had been mean, unintentionally giving the bots on the catwalk a clear view. He had wept with Dion when his creators had died in an accident. He had seen “An Eternity of Sparks” six times in theaters and cried each and every time the lovers met before they entered the Well.

After the start of the war only five mechs had seen Optimus Prime cry. Bumblebee at Alpha Trion’s funeral, Ironhide when they received word that the last neutral city had fallen, Ratchet when he’d received the Matrix, and Jazz and Elita-1 when they’d left Cybertron for the last time.

Now, in full view of the entire NEST assembly, with three world leaders on video calls, Optimus Prime sank to his knees and cried.

There, wiggling in the still cooling metal, was a sparkling.

0-0-0

“This isn’t possible!”

“Tell that to the bitlet,” Ironhide grumbled, arms folded, leaning back against a rapidly deforming staircase.

“Get off of that! My human workers need those in working order to reach big hulking lumps of metal like you.” Ratchet stomped around the hanger-turned medbay gathering supplies. “And I’m telling you that is now how the AllSpark is supposed to work! The Cube doesn’t just decide to make sparklings!”

“Made a lot of things when Sam was running with it,” he retorted.

“They were alive but they didn’t have sparks. They didn’t even have proper processors – I looked at the insane soda machine once they finally offlined it. The only code running was “fire.” This is – this is an actual sparkling! With a spark and a processor and everything! I’ve scanned it three times. It’s going to need a nanite donation! We’ll have to refine energon for it!”

Ratchet, Ironhide realized, couldn’t decide if he wanted to be scared, or joyful, so he was falling back on being angry with everything in hopes that it would fix itself. Approximately half of Rachet’s ability to do miracles was due to his patients willing themselves healthy so Ratchet wouldn't be angry with them.

Sparklings, in Ironhide’s experience, weren’t as susceptible to such manipulations.

“Aren’t you jumping the gun a little, as the humans say? You’re going to have to get it out of Optimus’s arms first.”

Ratchet’s groan could be heard from the administration building on the other side of the island.

0-0-0

“Hello.” Optimus couldn’t help it. The second those tiny blue optics shone in his direction he babbled nonsense at them.

Such as saying ‘hello’ for the fourth time.

The sparkling cooed at him and reached for its own pedes. It had an insatiable curiosity for its own frame. Optimus couldn’t blame it considering it had only had a frame for two hours. He’d be curious too.

The frame was reasonably standard – two pedes, two servos, one helm. It also sported tiny, stubby doorwings and a tiny stubby chevron. It was a soft matte grey for now, but Optimus looked forward to see what colors it took on. He ran a finger down one round cheek and it kicked out delightedly.

“Pedes,” he said, pointing to them. The sparkling looked up transfixed by the words. “Helm,” he said, tapping the part gently. That got him a grin.

They were ensconced in the Autobot Barracks, away from prying eyes. He was sitting with his legs folded on his own berth, leaning against the wall. For now he had the place and the sparkling to himself. He could, however, hear the same conversation repeated just outside the door where Lennox and Arcee were stationed.

“Is it true there’s a sparkling/baby robot?”

“We have nothing to say at this time. Command will release a statement.”

“But –“

“Frag off.”

After a while though there was a different commotion.

“Let me through you two! I’m in a hurry!”

“Wha-Ratchet!” The door were shoved open and both Arcee and Lenox were pushed aside as the medic forced his way in. For an ambulance he spent of a lot of his time moonlighting as a bulldozer.

“Ratchet?” Optimus started to stand, but Rachet waved him back down. “They would have let you through if you’d just waited you know.”

Ratchet walked up to him and knelt so he was optic to optic with the sparkling. From this angle Optimus could see every inch of his frame tense and then relax. He reached out a hand and laid it on the sparkling’s helm. Then he looked up at Optimus.

“I’ve run his spark scan through our databases. “

“Why?”

“Habit. Do you know how long it’s been since I did a standard sparkling check-up instead of a soldier’s battle readiness? I hit the “autofill” and it scanned the spark signature. It found a match.” Ratchet’s optics were intense. His hands trembled faintly and he balled them up in his lap.

“Optimus…it’s Prowl.” Optimus stared.

“What do you mean? I agree it looks like him, but –“

“No, I mean the spark scan showed that it’s…him. That’s the same spark I scanned when he first joined the Autobots.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I know. How will we tell everyone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have most of the first few chapters of this one written and another one! Happy fluffy things that just poured out - 5,000 words in three hours - after of the heaviness of that last chapter. It's not long, but damn if it isn't the cutest thing I've written to date.


	21. I hate you WAIT I love you 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl turns soldiers of both races into mushy goo and Optimus thinks of the future.

In the end, a formal announcement seemed too cold a way to tell his Autobots what had happened. Even the humans deserved better. They might not have known Prowl, but they had become part of his team nonetheless.

So Optimus sent a message that everything would be explained that evening. He encouraged them to come in plain clothes, because this was not the business of the military, no matter how much they would try to make it.

That was another battle entirely.

“Thank you all for coming,” Optimus announced once everyone was seated. “I know over the past day there have been many questions about recent events.” He could see Arcee up in the catwalk with a few of her human companions, legs dangling over the side. She winked at him.

“First, I must say that although Cybertronian biology may seem simple when compared with that of earth, this is not so. Being able to replace parts as well as repair them is what had led us to being such a long lived species as well as one that is well known throughout the Galaxy to other mechnoid lifeforms.” 

“Don’t start lecturing now,” Ironhide commed him. “The humans are practically busting out of their seats.”

Optimus paused and changed the subject. “But that is not the point of this meeting. As I was saying, it may seem simple, but some things are beyond even out understanding.”

“Yesterday the Maxtrix discharged an immense amount of energy into one of the scrap piles left over from Sideswipe and the HumVee.” He closed his eyes and tried to put that out of his mind. He would have to find some punishment for Sideswipe besides repairing the vehicle.

Prowl had been an expert at devising punishments that fit the bot. He’d once had Sunstreaker spend a day helping out a city planner – boring and a crime against art.

“This resulted in, well, the translation we have decided upon is ‘sparkling.’ And yes, a sparkling is our version of an infant.” A roar of delight built up and he waited for it to end. There was a lot of talk about finding a big enough cigar and “sparkling showers” as the soldiers worked through their excitement.

“There is more,” Optimus said and waited.

“More sparklings?” a hopeful voice called out.

“More to this sparkling,” Optimus corrected then stilled as he tried to steady his spark. This was the part he wasn’t sure of. “The sparkling was scanned and Ratchet found a match in our database. This appears to be a reincarnation of my Second-in-Command, Prowl.” There was silence as people tried to understand.

“Like,” ventured one woman in the front, “he is a descendent of Prowl?”

“No, he is Prowl. No two sparks are the same. The spark that resides in our new sparkling is the same that resided in the adult mech known as Prowl.”

They had discussed this. Optimus had not gained his power on Cybertron by being stupid or ignorant. He knew that this would cause trouble. They had discussed merely naming the sparkling Prowl and telling others that it was a homage.

The problem would be if other sparklings were, as Ratchet had taken to calling it, re-sparks. What if the Matrix revived an adult bot, memories and abilities in tact? It would be better to have been honest from the beginning, even if it would cause difficulties.

He had a feeling he would need to remind himself of that in the coming years.

“The mech I knew as Prowl was as kind and honorable a mech as I have ever known. He worked tirelessly throughout his life to better the lives of those around him. He was our primary tactician and was often a voice of reason during difficult times. He believed in doing his duty to his station, his friends, and his city. When something needed to be done, Prowl did not rest until it was finished to the highest standards and he held those around him to those standards as well. His steadfastness has been greatly missed.”

There was a moment of silence as Optimus remembered his friend, quiet, serious Prowl, seated at his desk with a data pad, not letting the exhaustion peek through. Then –

“Calm, steadfast, dutiful? He’s probably going to be hell as a kid then.”

0-0-0

The meeting had, as they expected, caused a rift. Optimus was pulled in for more than a few theological discussions between different groups: humans and Cybertonians, low ranked soldiers and Captains, religious minorities. It probably helped that the other Autobots were just as confused as the humans seeing as this had never happened before and were usually found arguing on both sides with the humans.

Some of those discussions were between himself and a single Autobot late at night. He was used to being a place for bots to vent their problems, both with him and the situation, but this was new territory for all of them.

Cybertronians understood the world thus:

You were sparked by the Allspark Cube.

You lived on Cybertron, which was the body of Primus given physical form. You tried to do a good job and be happy.

One day your spark went out and returned to the Well of Allsparks to be with all the other sparks that had gone before you and found eternal peace.

More than one very very tired solider wanted him to bring up this point with the Matrix and by extension Primus himself. 

Optimus thought this was a bit much to ask of him. For all that he’d held the title of Prime for millennia, he’d only held the actual Matrix for a single human year.

“This wasn’t part of the bargain, Prime,” Arcee ranted at him, locked away in the extra barracks. “I do my job, I fight for the rights of innocents and then I get to stop. This is not fair the Matrix calling us back after we’ve done our duty.” She flung her hands up before turning her back to him: a sign that she was feeling emotionally overwhelmed and trying to hide it. They had known each other far too long for it to work. Optimus took a step forward, but didn’t touch her. He had wisely left Prowl with Ratchet for the evening, sensing that something like this would happen.

“I will certainly bring your point up to the ancient and mysterious artifact that refuses to leave my chest cavity,” Optimus intoned with as much seriousness as he could. It startled a laugh out of her at least.

“Okay, I hear you,” she said. Then she walked up and in a very uncharacteristic gesture, wrapped her arms around him. The deep ache in her spark was not gone, but he could tell it had been eased and until the war was over that was all any of them could hope for.

The humans were a varied bunch: some felt it agreed with their religious view and were fine, some felt it disagreed and were fine, some thought it was blasphemy, and some still thought the Cybertronians were just very advanced robots and didn’t care either way.

For the next week it wasn’t uncommon to find groups in heated discussions about it.

“If what the Autobots say can be proved, then that means that reincarnation is real and religions that support it should be validated.”

“Except humans don’t have sparks. How are you going to scan a soul?”

“No, you’re not listening, one instances proves the possibility –“

“So it’s still just a possibility then.”

“No –“

“It’s a crime against God, that’s what it is!”

There were a few transfers off of Diego Garcia.

One group became less volatile when the Army Chaplain walked in on one of the worst arguments and shouted that if they had such passion about the subject he expected them to be in the chapel that Sunday.

The next Sunday he read out the Gospels to a much fuller crowd.

0-0-0

_“He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.”_

0-0-0

Apparently Major Acharya and Rabbi Levi, along with others, said something as well that halted the more heated discussions.

It took a week before everything actually calmed down and Optimus felt safe enough taking Prowl outside the barracks.

Prowl, judging by this exuberant laughter, supported this decision.

The humans they passed as Optimus walked through the base stopped what they were doing to stare up in awe. More than one had raced for a catwalk or the top of a vehicle to get a better look at the new Autobot bundle of joy.

It warmed Optimus that his human companions would want to see their sparkling. On Cybertron he would have invited family from all over the planet to see a new sparkling.

“Would you all like to see him?” he asked once he was a safe distance away from the artillery range.

“YES!” chorused the humans around him. Some, who had been trying to look unconcerned, hurried over.

Optimus knelt down and held Prowl up for the humans to see him clearly and for Prowl to see them.

“He’s so cute!”

“Is he going to be one of those flying ones?”

“He’s just gray – are you going to paint him or does he stay gray?”

“How fast doe they grow?”

“What do sparklings eat?

“Can we touch it?”

“Can we get it sick? New babies –“

“It’s a robot, dipshit! It can’t get sick.”

“Don’t curse in front of the baby!”

“How much does he weigh?”

Optimus waited until the questions slowed before answering.

“Prowl’s doorwings are purely for sensory uptake – he will not be able to fly. His nanites will start deciding what colors he will be in a few –“ he translated the times “- in seven months. He will grow slowly. Approximately one year in development for every three of yours until he reaches his, ah, preteen years. Then he will grow much more slowly. A year every fifty. He drinks energon just like the rest of us, though Ratchet is filtering it more closely because sparklings are more susceptible to illness and viruses. He weighs 214 pounds. If Prowl doesn’t mind, you can meet him. Slowly.”

In a rare display of efficiency the soldiers lined up to meet the sparkling. They spoke in exaggeratedly high voices and made silly faces and in general entertained the hell out of the sparkling. They reached out and stroked his hands or his soft legs and eventually he began returning them. He extended a single digit and touched Private Thomas’s buzzcut in wonder.

“Ha!,” the private laughed, “my girlfriend does the same thing!” 

It was a breakthrough for Optimus more than for the humans. Sometimes he needed to be reminded that he was among friends and allies. He started allowing the other Autobots to watch the sparkling during the work week.

Prowl was especially fond of Sideswipe. Optimus was sure this was due to the speedster NOT listening when Optimus told him not to use his skates while carrying the sparkling.

They all went slightly silly around the tiny mech.

Ironhide was caught multiple times singing to him. Ratchet snuck him energon goodies – something he’d used to make on Cybetron, but hadn’t bothered for eons. Arcee could be found snuggling in the walled sparkling berth during her off time. Particularly funny because the sparkling was nearly the size of her torso.

The humans were no better. Presents streamed in, not just from the soldiers on base and their families, but their internationally contacts.

The Japanese ambassador’s daughters felt it was very important that the “baby robot” got a teddy that looked like him and their mother and older sister sewed a plush copy of Optimus twice the height of the sparkling himself.

A geologist in Brazil that had worked with them during a Decepticon attack had sent him a crystal the size of a basketball.

When questioned most of the humans became sheepish and mumbled that it wasn’t anything. Some of the toys were unsuitable and were quietly donated, but most of them fascinated the growing Prowl.

He was especially taken with the numerous motor cars that had found their way into his berth area. He mostly enjoyed watching as one of the humans controlled them in small races around his berth.

All in all Optimus was certain he had the worlds best, smartest, and most spoiled sparkling.

It wasn’t until one rainy afternoon when Prowl was snuggling with his giant plushie and gnawing on a rust stick (Captain Lennox joked that Ratchet was going to lose all of this fearsome reputation if he kept making candy for the kids. Ironhide assured him that Rachet had always made candy for sparklings and it did nothing to make him less terrifying when he realized you’d skipped out on a mandatory physical) that one of the soldiers gave him something to think about.

“It’s first child syndrome,” she’d said. Lieutenant-Commander Roselyn Diaz-Lopez. They’d been sharing a cup of coffee/energon while they went over policy for international travel.

“Hmm?” Optimus asked.

“Prowl. He’s the only child now and so he’s the center of everyone’s attention. Once you have more running around here he’ll have to share you.” She chuckled. Optimus forgot about the documents in front of him.

More.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been interested in how humanity would see giant robots in terms of religion. In the second film a character makes the statement "Who made him [Optimus]?" referring to the Christian belief that God made humanity in His image. Throughout history the idea of a soul has been a central point in both religion and science. What would we do if we could meet an alien race that not only had a soul, but one that they could observe? I've implied that in order to bring peace the religious leaders drew upon parallels between the Cybertronian religion and their Earth religions saying "Look, we have the same thing."
> 
> Also, every time I log on, I check to see if this has been updated. You heard right, it's such a habit that now I check to see if my own story has been updated. I'm going to give myself a present and update it today. Woooo! :D


	22. Secret Baby Interludes 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sparklets are curious little beings. Siren is very curious indeed.

Commander Hardstop was the most verbose Commander Prowl had ever worked under. Usually this would infuriate Prowl, he would be flexing and clenching his servos trying to keep his calm. Today, however, he was thanking Primus for the ramble.

_Zap. Zap-zap._

The Carrying Specialist had warned him that sparklets enjoyed exploring their very small world through energy manipulation. He had described it as a small tingle that would spread throughout his chassis.

It was not.

_Zap-zap-zap._

He could pinpoint the exact spot his tiny sparklet was examining – the lower right half of the front side, exactly where he had a dataport - a very conductive dataport, which was also giving Prowl an echo of feedback with every little energy burst. The sparkling was apparently enjoying this.

 _Zap-zap-zap_ , it continued, gleefully torturing its carrier. Prowl tried to subtly tap the opposite side – the vibrations occasionally drew its attention. The only effect however was that Commander Hardstop looked up at the tapping sound and mistook it for Prowl signaling him.

“Oh, yes, Prowl, your report is next. Pardon me – I do ramble!” He chuckled and the rest of the room did as well. One of the beat cops standing in the background even shot him a thumbs-up behind the Commander’s chair.

“Yes, of course, Commander.” He stood slowly. “Lieutenant Prowl reporting on the recent disappearances reported by the Distal Branch of the Praxus enforcers.” He looked at the recording secretary and waited for his nod and the red light atop his helm to come back on. “The Distal Branch has reported five disappearances in the last three vorn – two creator/sparkling pairs and one femme. They’ve asked us to send officers with more investigative experience to help.”

“That’s the Branch you transferred from, right Lieutenant?” asked Commander Hardstop. “Are they asking for your return?” 

It made sense. Prowl’s tiny, cold habsuite was located just inside the boundary between the Distal and Central areas. It would be a shorter commute. He already knew all the officers. He was the most highly skilled investigative enforcer in either precients.

“No, Commander,” Prowl answered. He would not return if the Prime himself commanded him. He never would have agreed to the transfer in the first place if he hadn’t been looking for the quickest way to get away from Iacon and –

Jazz.

He collected himself. At least standing seemed to have confused his sparklet enough to stop it zapping.

“Lieutenant Axle has agreed to go and we’re asking for a transfer from Crystal City as well. The Lieutenant has ten vorns of experience working Mechacide here and sixteen vorns working Theft in the Lateral Branch. He is the best to send.” Out of the corner of his optic Prowl could see Lieutenant Axle beaming and puffing up.

That’s a lie, Prowl thought, but didn’t say, I’m the best to send, but I can’t because –

He ended his report and sat down. He longed for his diary to turn all of the half-finished, stifled thoughts into words. 

“Oh, and Prowl?” He looked up at Commander Hardstop. “Do you think you could stand in for Driveshaft and give the traffic report as well?”

“Yes, of course.” Fraggit. 

He stood again. He could feel the drifting of the sparklet around his spark now. Thank goodness it had quieted down at least.

“Traffic has implemented more frequent stops and has seen a drop in speeding, but not in reckless driving charges,” Prowl read. It was ridiculous. They all had access to the departmental reports. They could have been reading this. “The department is going to participate in a new program called S.T.O.P which stands for Situational Training and Operating Penalties which will –“ all he really wanted was a very long nap under the mesh Swerve had brought them – “and finally Officer Driveshaft would like to comment on the recent increase in illegal street racing. Please be cautious when trying to pull over illegal racers because they have an increased chance of crashing. When pulling them over make sure to state –“

ZAP!

“-FRAGGIT ALL TO THE PIT!” Prowl slammed his palms down on the table as pain laced up and down his entire frame. 

The sparkling had found the bottom of his cerebral dataport.

Prowl looked up at the room of shocked enforcers.

 _Go wit’ it Prowler!_ Jazz’s memory shouted in his audial. Prowl straightened. Several of the bots nearest him leaned back.

“I apologize. I have just accessed the percentage of crashes during arrest. I did not realize how many of our fellow enforcers were injured each vorn. I move that we increase Traffic’s funding for crash-proof armor and also that we look into more effective ways to arrest racers.”

“Everyoneinfavorofthemotionsayaye,” said the recording secretary hurriedly.

“Aye!” chorused the room like pre-schoolers, staring at Prowl like he was explosive ordinance.

Commander Hardstop cycled his optics.

“Prowl, I had no idea you felt so strongly.

The meeting ended.

Prowl hurried out and bolted for the washracks, certain that no one would follow him. He locked himself into a private stall and sank to the floor. That had been more embarrassing than when he’d spilled his energon all over his desk on his very first day. It had hurt more than getting stabbed.

“You can’t do that, brightspark,” he moaned, rubbing the lingering pain from his chassis. The sparklet was silent. Prowl waited, but nothing happened. Surely it was okay? It couldn’t be hurt by – the Specialist would have told him if – was it alright? He tapped at his chassis, harder than he meant to, hoping for anything – movement, a zap, the feeling of it drifting through the corona of his spark.

He could have wept when he felt it move to investigate the noise.

 _Zap-zap_.

 _Tap-tap_ , Prowl answered.

Then he dialed up his Carrying Specialist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to write this scene since forever! It's unnecessary filler and can be deleted from the main plot with absolutely no repercussions. The beauty of fanfiction is that I can still put it in. I have a few more - the painting of the picture in the nursery, how Prowl finds out about Siren's abilities, how the heck Prowl and Siren can both fit into that tiny washrack. Can't post them though until we're further along because of spoilers.
> 
> Your reviews are stupendous! When this is all finished and it won't be full of spoilers I'm going to tell you all how many of you changed the plot with something you mentioned in a review. It's almost like the plots are being crowd-funded. :) If you are writing a review, I love hearing what you think! 
> 
> Thank you for the kudos! Even just seeing the hit count go up and knowing someone is probably rereading my stories makes me happy. I get all warm and fuzzy. Then I remember how many of those hit counts are me because I write first for myself and enjoy rereading my own stories.
> 
> Lets talk about the word "Mechacide." I looked up the root words of homicide. I looked up the roots of those roots. I pulled out my Latin dictionary. I tried so hard to make a good word that could replace homicide (man+cut/kill) and then went with "mechacide" because it was the only one that didn't look silly. Also, since I don't think Cybertron would have an East, West, North, South equivalent I just used the words Distal and Lateral. They don't actually mean anything. Essentially Prowl is referring to the Branch That Is Away From Us and the Branch That Is To The Side.
> 
> Happy (for some Belated) Holidays! I hope to chat again before the new year!


	23. Secret Baby 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siren is very much Prowl's sparkling. Now he's learning how to be Jazz's sparkling as well.

Jazz, of course, did not recharge at all that night. Mirage refused say anything specific over an unsecured commlink. 

“So ya just gonna say “Stay safe!” while some slagger spies on us? Frag you!” Jazz spat, temper flaring.

“No, I’m telling you that all our information indicates that you and Siren are safe in the habsuite. We aren’t taking chances with this, Jazz.”

‘We’ meaning Mirage and the rest of Jazz’s former team.

“So the rest ‘o ya get ta know everythin’ while me an’ Siren just sit here in the dark –“ his vocalizer cut off. He clenched his servos hard until the urge to throw on every light in the suite passed. It was the kind of instinct he’d thought he’d lost vorns ago. Before the dark corners of a room had delighted him – a place to hide, to launch himself from while his target walked by unawares. With Siren sleeping only feet away, they turned ominous and threatening.

“Jazz. _Jazz_. I haven’t found anything to indicate that the paparazzi know they have a new celebrity,” said Mirage, carefully modifying their old codes. “The suite has been checked and triple checked. The security drones have no cameras and transmit to government receivers only. This is what you asked for when we started – you wanted all the eyes on you up on stage. Sometimes you have to deal with the crazy fans.”

It wasn’t enough. Jazz wanted to ask if Prowl had been deliberately targeted or if he’d just stumbled into it. How did Mirage know he and Siren weren’t in danger? What was the information that had scared Mirage? 

“An’ what are you all doing in the meantime while Ah deal with the psycho fans? Clearly somebot knows Ah’m here –“

“You aren’t even on the radar –“

“Listen, I –“

“Are you implying that I can’t handle your PR?” burst in Red Alert. Jazz heard the faint buzz of a signal blocker. 

“Hi Red,” Jazz said tiredly. “No, I wasn’t.” 

Even with the signal blocker Red was still using their code: PR – cover identity. It was that more than anything that that convinced Jazz to stop. If even Red Alert couldn’t get him a secure line, and didn’t trust his own signal blocker, it really was too dangerous.

“Fine,” he said at last, slumping back down onto the couch. “Just get here.” 

“Jazz?”

“I’ll just – I’ll be fine.”

There was silence, but it was a special kind. The sort between two mechs that were scared out of their minds, but trying to hide it.

“It’ll be alright, Jazz. We’ll keep you safe.”

They clicked off.

Jazz didn’t want to be kept safe. He wanted to keep Siren safe. He wanted to find Prowl. He wanted to be slipping through Praxus’s filthy underground, hacking every secure file he could get his hands on until he found him.

He heard Siren start to move and called up one of the feeds to his room. The sparkling was rolling around in his berth, playing out some story with his turbofox and his blanket. Jazz looked at the schedule again. Listen to an episode of some sparkling show, go get breakfast, go to park. He weighed the danger of following Prowl’s schedule if he was being watched with the danger of upsetting Siren. 

In the end he decided that the danger was small enough to risk it. Red Alert would be monitoring them and knowing the planet’s foremost expert in security was watching over you was different than asking former partners to keep an eye on your video feed.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t planning on packing enough “extras” to insure their safety though.

“First things first,” he said aloud to the empty room. It was a favorite saying of his grandcreator and thought Prowl would have heavily indorsed it.

He walked over to the audio transmitter and started fiddling with the stations. A small note next to it had the time, day, station, and name of each show they watched. Apparently “I Am A Strong Sparkling” was only one of them. They also enjoyed:

**The Audio Tales of Captain Impossible**

**Growing an Empathetic Sparkling in a Big City**

**Dealing With It: Interviews about Disability, Ability, and Outlier Gifts**

**Nuts and Bolts: My First Anatomy Lectures**

**Weld It!: Crafts for very young sparklings**

**Move Your Pedes, Sparklet!: Music and Movement for 0-200 vorns**

Jazz found the station and flipped it on. A soft voice came on thanking sponsors and Jazz heard Siren’s excited squee from the berthroom.

“Ya like this one, brightspark?” he hollered as he moved down the hallway. Siren was already standing in his berth, bouncing and babbling.

“Say YES!” he squealed as Jazz reached for him. 

“That what Prowler tells you do?” Jazz asked, chuckling as he carried him into the living room. His spark felt lighter just looking at his bitlet. He set him down and Siren immediately ran up to the transmitter and stood in front of it. The voice announced that it was time for “I Am A Strong Sparkling!”

“Hello my strong sparklings!”

“Hi!” Siren shouted, bouncing on his pedes. A dozen sparkling voices chorused with him on the transmitter. Jazz settled in on the couch to watch. This was adorable.

“Are you inside? Good. Let’s use our indoor voices.” The voice – a femme – got softer.

“Okay,” whispered Siren along with the others.

“Are you outside? Good. Let’s use out outdoor voices!” It got louder and Jazz dived down, pressing his hands against his audials in preparation.

“OKAY!” Siren shouted, louder than the other sparklings, but not enough to break anything.

“Remember to use the right voice while we say our affirmations!” Siren was nodding seriously, eyes locked onto the transmitter.

“Stand up tall! I Am Strong!”

“Up! I Am Strong!” Siren said with her, thankfully using his ‘indoor’ voice. He stretched his little servos up as high as he could.

“Touch your pedes. I Am Strong!”

“I Am Strong!” Siren sat on the ground and grabbed both his pedes. It continued for only a few minutes more with the words changing to “I Am Kind” and “I Am Listening” until returning to –

“Stand up tall sparklings! You are strong and you are ready for the day! Remember to be strong, kind, and listen. See you next time!”

“See you next time!” Siren bellowed at the transmitter. Jazz grabbed the remote and clicked it off. Siren looked at him, said, “Let’s go” and marched to the door without a backwards glance. 

Definitely Prowl’s sparkling. 

0-0-0

Jazz wasn’t sure if Siren was old enough to walk next to him (he knew about holding hands, that was definitely something the book had mentioned) and so he held his hand and kept an eye out like they were walking through the bad end of Dead End in the middle of the night cycle and not a perfectly safe street with good lighting, crossing guards, and adorably “shabby” shops.

Siren talked the entire way there, but Jazz had no idea what he was actually saying.

“GrimGrim’s here! GrimGrim’s here! Let’s play!” He tugged Jazz’s arm towards the road.

Jazz looked around, but the only bots within sight were a short red street vendor selling cold energon, a mech wearing an industrial blast-mask reading a data pad on the opposite side of the street, and a pair of bots with very expensive and trendy paint loudly discussing an episode of some audio drama. There were no other sparklings.

“Don’t see any playmates for ya, Siren, but why don’t we get some breakfast?” The vendor also had hollow tubes with jellied energon for sparklings.

“Energon!” Siren tugged at Jazz’s hand and they headed over to the cart.

“Siren!” the vendor called when he caught sight of them, walking around the cart and kneeling down. “Where have you been!” Siren tried to break away, but Jazz was having none of it. Siren wasn’t getting close until Jazz knew exactly who this mech was. With the mood he was in, he might ask for a full ID chip.

“Hello,” Jazz said, offering a hand as he pulled a very displease Siren behind him. “My name is Jazz. An’ you are?”

The mech looked surprised, as if he hadn’t notice Jazz until now.

“Who are you?” he asked just as suspiciously, looking him up and down. That endeared him to Jazz already, who was halfway through a list of local residents before it clicked:

Swerve.

This was one of the bots Prowl had wanted Siren to meet even before he emerged. 

“I’m Siren’s creator. Prowl is away right now and I was called to take care of him. You can check with the Praxian Enforcers or the Hospital if you wish.”

“Oh! You’re his creator?” The mech broke into a smile that took up half his face. “That’s wonderful! It’s good to meet you!” He reached out and shook Jazz’s hand with such enthusiasm Jazz was impressed his shoulder hadn’t popped out as it sometimes did.

“Yeah…”

“I’m so glad you and Prowl have reconciled!” Swerve finally let go of his hand and Jazz tried to subtly check if any of his fingers were bent. The mech was short, but he was built like a spaceship. In his grandcreators’s days a mech like Swerve would have been described as “thick as a cube of high grade” in very admiring tones. Jazz’s rounded corners and sleeker build would not have garnered much praise. 

Siren had been lucky enough to inherit both Jazz’s aerodynamics and Prowl’s good looks.

“I want a treat!” Siren stated clearly then added, “please.”

“Of course my little mech! Let me just get some filtering for you!” Swereve returned to his cart and pressed a number of buttons and twisted a few knobs before thin pink energon was trickling into two cubes.

“I gotta say again, I’m really proud of Prowl for finally getting in touch. He wouldn’t tell any of us about you besides the fact that you guys split. Got the feeling it was a bad break, huh?” He poured some of the rainbox hued sprinkles into one cup and spilled them across his small workspace.

“Something like that,” Jazz replied. A very friendly mech, but he seemed to have a bit of trouble keeping his mouth shut. And knowing when to drop a topic.

“Well, you’re here now and that’s what’s important!” He shifted the many containers on his cart, full of sprinkles, goodies, and add-in, spilling a good half cup of solvent over his hand as he attempted to wipe up the sprinkles.

“So how did you and Prowl meet?” Jazz asked. The Swerve in the diaries was the owner of a soup kitchen, not an energon vendor.

“Oh, around,” he lied easily as he plopped an enormous goodie into Siren’s cup. He snapped on a sparkling lid and handed both cups to Jazz. “It’s such a small neighborhood that you tend to just meet everyone! That’s one of the reasons I love my job. I get to see people every day like this little energon goodie!” He flicked solvent at Siren who giggled. “Are you guys doing to meet up with everyone at the playgroup? I don’t think it’s in the park today.”

“Nah, not today. Today we’re just hanging around.” Jazz took a sip from Siren’s and analyzed it quickly. Safe. He handed it to Siren who promptly poured some of it down his front as he admired the sprinkles.

“Ah, playing hooky from the schedule! My favorite pastime!” Jazz believed it. “Well, have a great day Siren! It was good to meet you Jazz!” Then he pushed his cart and was lost around the bend.

“Well that was exciting, huh, Siren,” Jazz said, committing the face and name to a memory file to send to Mirage later.

“Sweve makes energon!” Siren happily informed him, already trying to fish out the little energon goodie from the bottom of his cube with his glossa. 

Jazz continued through the park, looking for anyone acting suspicious and trying to keep Siren in his sight at all times. It wasn’t as hard as he’d expected. Siren mostly just wanted to hold Jazz’s hand and point things out to him: the bots, the benches, the aluminum trees, the litter.

Jazz, as a sparkling, would have dropped his creator’s hand and been halfway across the park by this time to climb something he wasn’t supposed to or to play hide and seek in the small play areas. Now, where would sparkling Jazz have hidden…

It was because he was looking for places to hide that he saw it. In the tiny space between two shops, just like the night before, there was a slender femme, her optics latched onto Siren. Jazz couldn’t make out anything from the distance beyond her colors: blue and pink.

If Siren wasn’t with him he would double back and drop down from the roof of the two story building to her right. With the sparkling however, Jazz’s options were limited. He didn’t trust a single soul in the city of Praxus to watch Siren and he couldn’t leave the sparkling anywhere by himself. He would have to be content with making a video recording as he led Siren over to one of the small sparkling play structures.

“Let’s try these out,” Jazz said, leading Siren to the small ladder. The sparkling looked at it suspiciously. Surely Prowl and Siren had gone on some of the play equipment? That was the whole point of going to the park! “Let’s go up. You like ‘up’ remember?” He tugged him closer.

“Jaaaazzzz,” Siren whined loudly and grabbed onto his leg. His name bounced around the park briefly and a few creators turned their heads. The femme in the alley shifted.

“Huh,” Jazz laughed. “I guess I never told you may name, did I?” It was an odd thing to think. He’d never formally explained to Siren that he was his creator either. It had just seemed like something Siren would already know, but judging by the reaction from Swerve, Prowl didn’t speak of him much.

Not, that Jazz blamed him.

“Don’t worry. It’s safe.” He nodded encouragingly to the sparkling, but made no moves forward. Siren would either go or not.

Slowly, acting like the ladder was going to attack him, Siren put his servos on the lowest bar. Then he put one pede on the lowest rung. With the greatest amount of care Siren climbed up two more rungs and then crawled onto the platform.

“Great job!” Jazz clapped, bouncing on his pedes. Siren looked back at him and took that encouragement to stand up. “Now lets try going down the slide!”

0-0-0-

Going down the slide proved to be too much for Siren. He lacked his creator’s magnets and thus his fearlessness when it came to heights and had obviously inherited his carrier’s over thinking problem.

“Come on down, Siren! It’ll be fun!” Jazz smiled brightly at him, image capture at the ready. Siren looked down and then shook his helm harder. Jazz had picked this structure because it didn’t seem popular and was empty. Now, however, a pair of sparklings were clambering up the ladder and heading for Siren and the slide. They lined up politely behind Siren, but seemed puzzled when he just stood there.

“Go!” one of them urged. 

Jazz walked around to the front of the slide. “You can do it, look!” He reached under the arch to grab Siren’s hand and help him down, but Siren jerked back, shaking his head harder, tears forming in his optics.

Slag.

Jazz walked back to the ladder, planning on coaxing Siren back down it, but now the two sparklings were getting impatient and trying to squeeze around him.

“Hey, you two,” Jazz started to say to the sparklings, awkwardly, but it was too late. Siren, spooked and upset, turned and climbed the next ladder to a higher platform, then another, so that now, even though he was on one of the small structures, he could look down and see the top of Jazz’s helm. He did not like this.

Siren’s wail shook the play structure. Jazz could see the two sparklings running back to their creators, terrified. All around the park, creators were turning to look at him, some standing up as if they were going to come over.

That, Jazz was certain, was the last thing Siren wanted.

“I’m coming, sparklet!” Ignoring the others, Jazz turned on his magnets and quickly scaled up the slide that led to the highest platform. Siren was frozen against the bars, looking down.

“It’s alright, I’m here, you’re okay,” Jazz murmured, inching closer. Siren caught sight of him and fell to his servos, crawling until he was in Jazz’s lap, his sobs dying off.

“Shhh, shhh, I’m sorry. That was too scary for you, wasn’t it?” He spoke nonsense and rocked him. Slowly the other creators lost interest and left the two of them alone. Jazz checked the gap – the mysterious watcher was gone. He settled in to wait until Siren was ready.

After a few more minutes, Siren had stopped crying and was starting to look around himself. Hopefully they would be able to climb down the ladder without a problem and make their way back to the habsuite.

“You okay, Siren?” Jazz shifted so that they were sitting upright again.

Siren clung tightly to him, any tighter they they’d be pressure welded together. Then he looked down the slide. He looked back at Jazz and said, “Down?”

“Ya wanna go down, sweetspark?” Jazz asked, shocked. 

Siren grabbed him even tighter and said determinedly, “Down.”

“Ya wanna go down…together?”

“Down.”

“Alright.” Jazz wrapped one arm around Siren and slowly maneuvered himself towards the slide, legs out. “Are you ready?” he asked again. Siren turned his helm enough to see where they were going, arms and legs still likes vices around Jazz’s torso, and nodded.

Jazz pushed off, using his magnets to slow their descent and make sure their landing was gentle. His pedes hit the ground with a light thump and he looked down.

“You okay?” Siren nodded. Then he looked past Jazz to the top of the slide.

“Up?”

Sparklings were weird.

0-0-0

After going down the slide together six times, Jazz and Siren were ensconced in the living room. Siren on the floor with a playset (ships and posable mechs with the Captain Impossible logo everywhere) and Jazz was on the couch trying to untangle the parachute from one of the femmes.

The door was chiming for entry. Jazz checked the building roster – it was his energon delivery.

He checked that Siren was still engrossed in the toys on the floor of his room and went to the door. He checked the camera – it never hurt to be extra careful – and –

He flung the door open.

“Surprise!”

Hound and Beachcomber stood in the doorway.

Jazz gaped at them.

“How the Pit did ya get here so fast? Yer both supposed ta be in Iacon.”

“When something’s important you really put your whole engine into it!” Hound said. It took Jazz a moment to puzzle that out.

“You _drove_ here?”

“Oh yes,” said Beachcomber as he stumbled over to the couch. “My treads are shredded and I’m MADE for going off road. I don’t want to think about your treads, Hound.”

“No better than yours, but probably no worse either. It doesn’t matter.” He stepped closer to Jazz and gently put his arms around him. “We’re here to help.”

“Oh,” said Jazz faintly. “Thanks.”

Then he burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you see those first few paragraphs? I hate them. You should hate them too. This chapter has been written for a month. A MONTH. Except those first few paragraphs used to just say "Mirage told Jazz it would all be okay, Jazz grudgingly believed him" so that we could get to the fluff faster.
> 
> My brain however said, "if I were a reader I'd be pissed, that would throw me right out of the story, we need an explanation." So I needed Mirage to explain to Jazz that while he couldn't tell him anything, he was probably safe, don't worry. And I needed Jazz to accept that. What a great time to develop story and relationships! A chance I will take advantage of later, because I need this chapter posted and off my To-Write list.
> 
> On the bright side, I'm realizing that I do have writer skills. On the other hand this chapter took forever and I'm still not happy with the beginning.
> 
> BONUS: This chapter contains one of the most important scenes for the climax. Can you guess which one it is? There are quite a lot of clues about other things though if you're looking!


	24. Marriage of Convenience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many ways to keep a berth warm...mainly blankets and snuggles.

Prowl was making up the berth. Their berth. Jazz walked in.

The berth in his apartment (not his for much longer) was just a thick foam pad on top of a metal shelf. Some mechs, especially from his grandcreator’s day, recharged on nothing but a metal shelf. It was only recently that the pads had become more common, though farther form the city it wasn’t uncommon to have “unadorned berth” listed in housing descriptions still.

Prowl’s berth was significantly larger than his, being designed for a pair instead of a single mech. The foam pad was much thicker and there were pillows waiting on a chair to be placed on it. Prowl was also laying out thin, spun silicone sheets and a heavy, blanket made from woven gold.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Prowl said when he noticed him, “but I have slept with coverings since I was a sparkling and I find it difficult to sleep without them.”

“Why’d ya need coverings as a sparkling?” The most Jazz had ever needed was a flat, acid resistant sheet for when the acid rain dripped through the cracks.

“We lived out in the plains and the temperature was very unpredictable. It was also useful for when the wind stirred up the glass sands. You couldn’t keep it out entirely, but a blanket was good for keeping it out of your joints at least. Will you mind?” It was such a normal question. Jazz kinda wanted to shout at the mech that they were bonded now and they needed to talk about it, but he was too tired.

“Nah. It won’t bother me.”

“Good, I believe it would be best to turn in for the night cycle. We are both very tired.” Once he had the pillows set to his satisfaction, Prowl flipped open the blankets and shuffled beneath them.

Jazz crawled up the bed and pulled the covers down, shimmying into them. It wasn’t bad. The added heat from the blankets and the warm frame beside him was making him very drowsy. So this was his first night of bonded life. It wasn’t so bad.

Prowl sent the command for the lights and they were plunged into warm, cozy darkness.

0-0-0

Jazz had changed his mind on bonding entirely. This was clearly the best decision any bot could ever make.

He was curled up under the blankets and Prowl was bringing him his morning energon before he left for the morning. Jazz was extremely comfortable on the very thick foam pad and he really understood why Praxians put so much stock in these things.

“Jazz, here’s your energon.” Jazz threw off the covers.

“Thanks, Prowler,” he said, smiling at his new bondmate in a way he hoped conveyed his feelings.

Prowl looked shy and startled, but returned the smile.

“It’s no trouble. I was making my own anyways,” he said.

“Yeah, but ya didn’t have ta bring it too me or make extra. Thank you.” He reached out on instinct and took the mech’s hand. When Prowl didn’t pull away immediately he rubbed his thumb over Prowl’s fingers slowly.

“Yes, well…” Prowl was at a loss for words! Score one for the Jazz-i-nator!

“I’ll see you tonight?” Jazz asked releasing the servo.

“Yes,” said Prowl firmly. “As a newly bonded enforcer I am entitled to regular shortened hours for the first few months of my bonding and a guaranteed every other weekend off. I will be home well before dinner. We can play Strategy.” He stopped and back tracked. “Or whatever else you wish to do.”

“Strategy sounds great.” Jazz had never heard of the game.

“Okay. Right. See you tonight.” Prowl turned to go and then hesitated. He spun around and placed a quick, chaste kiss on Jazz’s lips and then fled the room. Jazz heard the door close and Prowl speed away.

He touched his lips softly.

The best decision he’d ever made in his life.

0-0-0

By nightfall Jazz had learned the rules of Stragety and found the game board and pieces in Prowl’s closet. Even though Prowl had invited him to go through the habsuite as if it was his own, Jazz still felt like he was invading someone else’s space. He tried to leave a little evidence of his digging as possible and set up the game in the living room just before dinner.

Jazz could not cook to save his life – as far as he was concerned perishable energon from a tap was practically gourmet. He’d lived most of his life on either poverty rations or military rations. So dinner was simply another cube of city piped energon and a small plate of crunchy mineral wafers.

They would at least have something special for dessert. One of his bonding presents was from Sideswipe and it was an entire bottle of very high-end high grade. Jazz was going to pour them each a tiny cube using his new crystal cube drinking set (Sunstreaker’s present) and see if he couldn’t convince Prowl to talk with him a bit more freely.

At precisely five minutes before he’d said he would arrive, Prowl unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

“I’m home,” he said with a smile.

“Welcome back,” Jazz said, his spark fluttering like static across the comm lines.

“I will get cleaned up and join you for dinner?” he asked uncertainly, looking at the set table. His eyes caught the board and Jazz would swear on his deathbed that Prowl had levitated in happiness.

“I’ll be –“ Prowl was hurrying to their small wash rack already, “ – waiting.”

Dinner was an adorable affair. Gone was the stiff speech and reserved manners of their bonding day. Prowl would never be called ‘emotional’ but he was certainly very funny. He shared quiet stories about his coworkers when Jazz asked and turned the question around to ask about Jazz’s friends and fellow musicians.

When Jazz brought out the high grade and the crystal cubes Prowl looked awed.

“You want to share these with me?” he asked, gently stroking the expert carving work on one tiny cube.

“Of course. What’s mine is my bondmate’s.” Before that had felt like a threat in the vows. Everything he’d owned and worked so hard for over the years would now belong to some other mech as well. And since a bond was permeant – unless he wanted to murder Prowl – some part of him was supposed to belong to this mech as well. 

He was finding that he liked that idea.

“Would you…would you like to play Strategy with me?” Prowl asked, looking hopeful.

“I would love to. I’m still a novice, so go easy on me.”

“Of course!” Prowl rushed and pulled Jazz’s chair out before he could push it out himself and grabbed both their cups in his eagerness.

They sat on low cushions around the table and started the game.

This is actually really fun! Jazz thought. He’d been expecting a dry game and he was willing to play if it made Prowl happy, but he was actually having a great time. By the end of the first game it was obvious that Prowl was simplifying his playing to match Jazz, but Jazz found he didn’t mind it.

They played through the night, sipping high grade and laughing. 

Optimus’s words from the night before his bonding came back to him.

_Sometimes Primus sends change our way because he knows we’re not brave enough to do it ourselves. Maybe it was time you let someone beside me and your team in._

0-0-0

The weeks repeated like that with warm nights and dreamy days passing where all Jazz did was read reports from Prowl’s home office (which was actually amazing and full of gadgets and toys) and playing his instruments, recording idle songs.

Then a mission came up that only Jazz would be able to take. The enforcers might have the luxury of Bonding Leave, but Head of Special Operations for the Prime did not.

“Be safe,” Prowl said as he left for work, knowing Jazz would be gone before he returned. “I packed some shelf stable cubes into a crate for you. It should fit in your subspace.”

“I’ll be careful,” Jazz reassured him. This was a strange exercise – he’d never had to leave anyone behind before. At least not ones that knew where he was going. “I don’t know when I’ll return so don’t touch the Strategy board!” They’d quickly progressed from short games to long, drawn out ones that last two or three cycles.

“I won’t. Be safe.” Then he left and Jazz went inside to load up the energon. He already had high energy gel tubes and capsules, but Prowl had packed it and he would take it.

The mission did not go well.

Jazz stumbled into the habsuite in the middle of the night, moving silently to not wake Prowl. Ratchet had checked him and discharged him, but his entire frame was a mess of pain and patches.

Better than others though. Too many of Ironhide’s soldiers hadn’t made it back and too many of the mechs Jazz was supposed to retrieve had died in the escape. It had been a pit of a mission.

A gentle comm came his way as he walked to the wash racks to rinse some of the energon off. He would recharge on the couch on top of a spare sheet and buy Prowl a new one. He opened the comm. It was probably Optimus looking for a short debrief.

“Yes?”

“I would like you to sleep in our berth tonight, but I understand if you need space.”

Prowl.

“How’d you –“

“Ratchet commed me when you were in medbay. It’s standard procedure for bonded couples to be alerted.”

“I – I would like to sleep in our berth too, but I’m,” he trembled, vents flaring as he held back the sobs, overheating, “I’m all over with energon. Let me clean up first, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

Jazz walked into the wash racks and turned it as hot as it would go. It still wasn’t hot enough. He hadn’t thought to override the heat safety on it and probably wouldn’t anyway. He didn’t want Prowl burned or scalded.

He scrubbed every inch of his plating, using the brushes to dig mercilessly into the gapes where energon liked to hide. Once he was clean and raw he dried off.

Their berthroom hadn’t changed. There were still unpacked boxes that Jazz hadn’t gotten around too. Still a small lamp on the berthside table. And Prowl was still there, sitting propped up on the pillows and reading a data pad. He looked up when Jazz entered.

For a moment nothing changed. Jazz hung in the doorway like an empty suit of armor. Then Prowl held out his arms.

“Come here, Jazz,” he said softly and Jazz rushed into them. The dam broke and Jazz was shaking so hard he could hear Prowl’s back plate hitting the wall behind him.

“Shush, shhh, I have you,” Prowl whispered to him, maneuvering him over and under the sheets since Jazz had forgotten how to get into a berth. He forgot everything except the need for Prowl’s arms around him and the warmth of the blankets.

Prowl continued to mumble nonsense at him that reached right down into his spark and soothed it. He never once let go and Jazz found his arms loosening as his spark burned out the pain.

Jazz didn’t remember falling into recharge.

0-0-0

The morning did not bring the rejection Jazz half feared, nor the awkwardness. Prowl brought him energon in berth and snuggled back in, saying he had asked for the day off.

Jazz tried to protest. He’d been alone after missions before. You didn’t last long as an agent if you didn’t know how to decompress alone.

Prowl’s reply was that Jazz was no longer alone and, if he had anything to do with it, Jazz would never be alone again.

Jazz had promptly fallen into another crying jag and Prowl had had to put both their cubes on the berth side table to wait until he was done.

“It helps you know,” Jazz said as Prowl tucked the heavy gold blanket around them both, handing Jazz his cube. “Having you here. I’m sorry I was so horrible at first.”

“You do yourself a disservice. You were hesitant and uncertain, not ‘horrible.’”

“I gave you the cold shoulder, any colder and I’da been wearing an ice pauldron.” Prowl leaned down and kissed Jazz’s helm.

“I had faith that you would warm up.” Jazz laughed. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Of course, why do you think I have so many blankets?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a start for the Marriage of Convenience square. It had world building, it had humor, Jazz was in character, Prowl was interesting. 
> 
> Then I wrote that last chapter for "Scandal" and was so sad and low that I wrote "I HATE you, wait I LOVE you." That wasn't enough fluff so I wrote this in a single blurry session as part of that original Marriage of Convenience story. To be honest I don't remember writing most of it. Snuggles were needed and I made them appear.
> 
> However, it doesn't fit. I love it. It makes me feel all warm and tingly. It just doesn't really fit the story. I was working on "Secret Baby" and stumbled across it, so I thought I'd post it as a stand alone. It doesn't have a beginning or an ending and there isn't much of a middle, but I think it's easy to figure out.


	25. I hate you WAIT I love you 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Optimus remembers his old friends and wishes they were there.

More.

0-0-0

It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered it. Hadn’t that been the reason they’d decided on the truth when they were explaining Prowl? Ratchet was looking back at all of his sparkling care courses from university, refreshing his memory after 3 millennia of war. Bulkhead had arrived only a few months ago and was already looking to increase the size of the base and put in more barracks. Now they would be used not just for Autobots but for any new sparklings the Matrix decided to create. And if one had caused so much difficulty, Optimus was hesitant to think what a number of them would do.

Efficiency was already down 4% across the board. His own had taken a nose dive, but he’d comforted himself with the fact that once he got into a good rhythm and sorted everything out he would be able to return to his previous working hours. That wouldn’t be possible if he – or even if the others – started becoming caregivers.

Being a soldier and a parent would never have been possible on Cybertron. Sparklings did not happen ‘by accident’ like they did on Earth. If a soldier wanted to have a sparkling and raise it they transitioned from active service and chose another method of work. 

He would soon be navigating the murky and dangerous waters of social reform and policy. He wanted Prowl and Jazz back more than ever.

0-0-0

The Hall of Records was silent. Optimus stood in the doorway to the law section, shoulders drooping with exhaustion.

“You look tired, Optimus.”

Prowl.

Optimus still wasn’t quite sure of this mech. He wanted to trust him, but at the same time it was difficult to read him. And Optimus had long prided himself on his ability to read sparks. Jazz had called it “spooky” and Ratchet called it “intuition.” 

It didn’t really feel like either. He simply felt in tune with those around him. When Ratchet was frustrated Optimus could feel his spark reaching out to sooth him. When Elita was happy he wanted to lift her higher and share in her joy. He’d been doing it as long as he had memory files.

Prowl was harder. He kept his emotions close and any tells he had were rare and hard to spot. Optimus was determined to learn him, however difficult and uncomfortable.

Standing in an empty library speaking with him felt like talking to a faded ghost.

“I am tired, Prowl, but I need to finish writing. If we want to challenge the council properly about the rights of aliens and non-sentient life forms we need to have a good, strong,” he sighed as the exhaustion briefly overwhelmed him, “good strong rebuttal. You know how Councilmech Gamma is going to react. I think we can swing some of the others, but he –“

“Let me see it,” Prowl interrupted, stepping forwards and taking the data pad from his servo without waiting for a reply. Optimus stood there blankly as Prowl read through it in kliks.

“We need section 1002 C. There is a deposition that we can use for your argument about a right to dignity.” He followed Prowl as they wove in and out of the shelves. Finally Prowl walked up to one of the shelves and without pause pulled a data pad down from the shelf. “Come sit here,” he ordered and started scrolling through the articles.

They worked through the night cycle and by morning they had an airtight defense prepared. Prowl used his knowledge of criminal courts and Optimus used his knowledge of politics to plug up holes and prepare counter arguments.

“Well,” Optmius said as he saw the light of the morning showing through the windows, “I’m going to go home and catch a few hours of recharge before the council meeting. When do you go on duty?”

“In sixteen minutes,” he said without pause. “I should be able to make it to the station in ten.” Optimus’s jaw dropped.

“You have to be at work in sixteen minutes? Wait, you need to at least get a cube first –“

“I have cubes in my desk for just this purpose. Don’t worry.” He stood up to go, but Optimus stopped him.

“Why did you let me keep you so long?” 

Prowl paused.

“Because you needed me.”

0-0-0

Prowl prized duty and hard work over everything else, sometimes even above the law.

If Prowl were here he would have already figured out a way to manage a hundred sparklings and it would have worked flawlessly.

If Jazz were here he would probably have called dibs on playing with the sparklings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short. Sorry no babies! The plan for this story is to interweave the past and present so that we saw how important Jazz and Prowl were to each other and the team.
> 
> Learning how to type was the best skill I ever acquired. I have a terrible headache and wrote the ending of this and a good chunk of another chapter of Scandal with an icepack tied to my eyes.
> 
> Next time, more baby Prowl, more alien culture and anatomy, and possibly bathtime. Imagine a half dozen giant robots with hands that turn into guns making sure teeny tiny baby robot doesn't get soap in its eyes.


	26. Marriage of Convenience Fragment 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz's secret is found out!

His first fake Identification Packet had been terrible and barely able to fool the bartenders in the nicer parts of Polyhex.

His next had been juuuust good enough to fool the border guards and get him out of the slums and onto a transport to the very outskirts of Iacon.

Once he’d joined the Autobots he was certain that no one would question the fact that he was a traveling musician that had just so happened to have talent for espionage and sabotage. 

What Jazz learned from all of this was that people had different ways of dealing with war. Some people helped the needy. Some chose to fight.

Some dug up obscure laws to try and get people they didn’t like thrown out of the city.

0-0-0

“I’m afraid the law is clear!” trumpeted the mech even as his cohort were trying to hush him. “You asked me to review the records for inconsistencies –“

“That was for Decepticons, Bushy! Not –“

“False credentials! Lies! He is not Jazz of Polyhex!” The mech was struggling hard against his friends and trying to get closer to the doorway where Jazz stood, frozen. Two of his friends gave up holding him back and simply crawled on top of him, finally bringing him down.

He’d been in recharge when Ambush had banged on his door howling about lies. This in turn had awoken everyone else on the hallway. They were all cycling their optics in the bright light, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Listen, dude.” It was Beachcomber, raising his hands to pacify the mech. “You’ve got a mix up. This is Jazz, he’s Optimus’s Third in Command. If you want to talk let’s do it in the morning. Bots around here need their rest.”

“No! We need to start the paperwork now!” His fellows were still piled on top, but the mech managed to get one arm free and he turned on a wrist projector. “Look! False!” It was Jazz’s first identification card in Polyhex with the name “Tone.” Another popped up, his second one, the name “Swing Beat.” The finally two were both when he’d decided on the name Jazz. The last should have looked impeccable to any mech. It had held up under the scrutiny of Spec Ops after all.

“So the mech likes changing his designation. I went by “Quartz” for a while,” Beachcomber said unconvinced. Good, if that was all the lawyer had then –

“And here’s his REAL identification!” he shouted triumphantly. The picture changed and Jazz felt all the energon rush from his body. It was his real identification card, complete with his spark signature. Unmistakeable.

**Brand: Shopping Unit 47 (Default Color: Black)**

**Use: Follow customers to carry shopping**

**Creation Method: Spark Clipping**

**Repair: Disposable/One Use**

At the bottom were his initiation and suggested termination dates.

Jazz shook in his doorway, near blind with panic. The rest of the hallway was silent. Except for the lawyer who was still shouting.

“Ambush stop!” one of his friends pleaded.

“You should have registered properly!” The lawyer had no idea what he had just done. He had no idea.

HE HAD NO IDEA.

Jazz felt the tide of anger rise and fall. The only thing getting angry now would get him was either thrown in a jail cell with two charges – felony lying and aggravated but justified assault – or it would confirm what the other bots had always said about the Object class.

So Jazz stood in his doorway, as still as a statue, while security was finally called and the lawyer was wrestled away. The mechs and femmes in the hall tricked back to their rooms or to their duty posts.

It wouldn’t make a difference in the end. This was just a small reprieve before the heavy hand of justice would fall.

He had no fear that Optimus would agree with the lawyer. Optimus and Jazz had talked long into the night about things like Object classes and slavery and the conditions of the mines. Optimus would obliterate them all if he could do it without bringing down a whole host of political entanglements on them.

The government of Iacon however would think differently. Even mechs who didn’t think badly of the lower classes would be forced to answer to the rule of the law.

His comrades would think differently. He knew of more than one mech or femme that “wasn’t prejudiced, just wanted things to be like the old days when everything was golden and we didn’t have poor mechs begging in the street.”

Having been one of those poor mechs, Jazz could absolutely say that the entire reason there were poor mechs and femmes begging in the street was because they were no long held in bondage by the rich.

Bots like those would not care that he had worked his way up. They would not care that he was Optimus’s Left servo. That he was responsible for their lives day in and day out. They would only see a mech who lied instead of going through the proper channels. Never mind that the proper channels would have meant death for him. Mech in the Object Class were never allowed to leave. They either worked or they were terminated. It had been pure good luck that Jazz had been able to pass for a normal Cybertronian for so long. 

“Jazz?” It was Blaster. When the crazed lawyer had started banging on his door, Blaster had come at a run asking if he needed help. Jazz was surprised he would still speak to a thing, once its nature was revealed.

“Yes?” Was he falling into his service voice? Was that how he had used to greet customers and answer questions?

“Do you need someone to stay with you tonight?”

It was a wonderful question. Jazz nearly broke down there in the hallway, but managed to hold it all in long enough to nod and step back into his habsuite.

“Hey, hey mech, this doesn’t change anything. If anything it makes us tight, ya dig?”

“Those are my words,” Jazz half laughed, shaking where he stood enough that Blaster was starting to gently push and nudge him towards the berth.

“Yeah, I like them. Listen, Jazz, I don’t think any differently about you. Whatever those bastards in Polyhex said, you’re your own mech. It doesn’t matter how they got your spark or what they tried to program you to do. You are Jazz. You hold to that and everything will work out, okay?”

Jazz nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo...this probably won't actually get put together, but I really like the bits that I wrote. I'm just going to post them. Hope you guys don't mind. This probably won't be continued, even though I liked the idea. My giant Secret Baby story (that was meant to be a single chapter, I meant to write it as a single chapter) and Scandal (was supposed to be two chapters) and others have taken over.
> 
> Enjoy these fragments and stay tuned for more updates!


	27. Marriage of Convenience Fragment 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is in the middle of being deported when...

“I have an objection, Honored Lawyer,” said a flat voice from the back. Optimus looked more shocked that Jazz, but he motioned the bot forwards. They stood up and walked to the front.

It was a mech Jazz had never seen before. His paint had once been a flashing bright white and deep black, but was now quite dingy. The only bit of color on him was a red chevron that had one point bent awkwardly.

Ambush narrowed his optics.

“Name,” he demanded.

“Second-in-Command Prowl of Praxus,” he stated, falling into a parade rest in front of the assembly. There was a gasp echoing around the room. The SIC of the Autobots almost never left his office, much less the tactical wing of headquarters. Few had seen him in person and to the majority of the army he was a disembodied voice that came on whenever they were down a sinkhole with no hope in sight.

This had, of course, caused many of the soldiers to develop a fascination with the mech. Having a crush on Prowl was practically a rite of passage for young recruits. The mysterious mech that saved the day? The voice of comfort in their darkest hours when it looked like they would lose the fight? Jazz understood the appeal even if he’d never harbored the same desires. Ops ran on Ops tactical and the only voice Jazz heard when the going got rough was his own, usually screaming out into dead radio space.

 _First time for everything_ , he thought as Prowl made his way to the front to stand next to Jazz.

“What is your objection, Second-In-Command Prowl of Praxux?” The mech straightened even more – Pit, they could use him to erect buildings – and called out as calmly and blandly as if he were delivering a report.

“Jazz of Polyhex and I are to be bonded at the end of the week.”

Well that was a surprise.

“After our bonding Jazz will be considered a full citizen. While it is within the rights of the Law to banish him today, it means I, too, will have to leave until our bonding ceremony and that would not be very convenient.”

Especially, Jazz thought with a touch of hysteria, since we won’t be bonding. 

0-0-0

Of course the story built up. No one – not even Jazz and he knew it was the truth – would believe that someone like Prowl would bond to an Object just to keep them from being exiled.

To many it was “obvious” in hindsight:

  1. Prowl never had romantic dalliances – no reason if he was already courting
  2. There was no one of similar rank on base, and Prowl considered abuse of power to be a Very Serious Thing Indeed. Jazz didn’t answer to Prowl, but to Optimus. 
  3. Prowl didn’t construct tactical plans for Special Operations and would therefore never have to worry about putting his love in danger
  4. Prowl was calm and collected. It made sense that he’d choose a wild, fun type of mech.



Some of the gossip theories became quite complex and Blaster – who would not stop listening to the radio chatter – kept Jazz informed of all of them.

Jazz had to admit he was very impressed. Some of these theories started drawing evidence from vorns ago. All of it ignoring the fact that until his trial HE AND PROWL HAD NEVER EVEN MET!

It was exhausting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may be giving a nod to how many pairings in fanfiction are of characters that have never met before. :)
> 
> Edit! Thanks for pointing that out. I was veeeerry tired when I wrote these. In fact it originally ended with:
> 
> "To his surprise after the thingy nothing really changed they went their sepearte ways and I need more coffee."


	28. Marriage of Convenience Fragment 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz and Prowl talk and Ambush the overly enthusiastic lawyer has the truth pointed out to him

It took work to ignore appearances to the point that your paint got to THAT state. Jazz looked down as his own silver, flecked liberally with sparkle and chips of black and white. He’d thought it a splurge at the time, but in hindsight the cost was barely a quarter of what most bot’s spent on their paint. Compared to the thin, cheap paint covering Prowl though, it was a masterpiece.

“Le’ me help ya,” Jazz said, moving forward before he could regret it or Prowl could object. He stepped under the spray and turned the nozzle down from “almost enough to strip the paint” to “firm.”

“Ya not helpin’ the paint by going so hard on it. S’ not going to help those peeling parts either. Look.” Jazz rubbed his servos across the plating across the paint peels instead up with or against them. Little curls of black and white fell. “This way they won’t peel more.” It was a trick from his younger days when each repaint was a month’s energon even with the cheapest paint. And the cheapest paint was the one most likely to peel.

Before that he simply hadn’t been painted. The black paint he’d been issued with was industrial grade – dull and ugly but very tough. He’d gotten scuffed over the vorns, but no one had cared any more than they cared that the sidewalk had a chip. As long as he still worked it didn’t matter what his paint looked like.

“Are ya gonna get a repaint before the ceremony?” Jazz asked, the frozen coolant in his lines thawing a bit at seeing the Unflappable Prowl out of sorts. 

“Yes.” The mech shivered under Jazz’s servos as he ran the solvent until they were clear of paint flecks. “Before it was not important – I spend most of my day inside my office and the bots I do spend time with outside of work are not bothered by my appearance. However it will reflect badly on both of us if I do not put in the effort to even get repainted.”

“Yeah, and we wouldn’t want them to doubt our bonding, now would we?” Jazz asked, angrier than he meant to. Prowl froze under the stream and turned to Jazz. Those intense blue optics stared at him from under a curtain of solvent.

“If you wish to break this deception now I will understand. I will not be able to secure your citizenship or your right to remain as a refugee due to the political situation at this time. Polyehx was Decepticon before its fall and now is no more. If you had been from Crystal City or Stanix I might have been able to get you in as a refugee. The best I could do was send you off planet to live with a neutral colony or one of our solitary battalions.”

“Hmph, good to know Optimus has my back,” Jazz replied, the sarcasm thick in his voice. Good, it would hide the betrayal. Prowl reached out and grabbed Jazz’s arm, the first physical contact he’d had voluntarily with Jazz.

“The Prime does not agree. He has threatened to take his seat of power and move it to a scrapyard in Protihex. However we need Iacon’s support and the government of Iacon is on high alert right now. They know the Decepticons will be coming after them next. Before, having the Prime here was a protection. Megatron was going after easier targets and the Autobot army was there to defend the city. After Praxus,” there was the slightest flinch and Jazz winced in sympathy himself, “they know that is not true. So, like all frightened bots, they are trying to find something to control and make themselves feel safer.”

“An’ they chose the immigration laws,” Jazz growled.

“Yes,” said Prowl, nodding. “Keeping out the refugees will do very little good in the long run. Megatron will have Iacon no matter what. It might protect them temporarily from sabotage, but I hear we have a very good Head of Special Operations. I think he might be the mech to talk to about preventing sabotage and infiltration.” Despite the seriousness of their conversation, Jazz laughed.

“I’m sure I could think of something,” he said, turning off the solvent.

0-0-0

“Why’d ya help me?” Jazz couldn’t figure it out. He was waiting to be hurt, to be used, anything that would reveal the mech Bluestreak idolized and Ironhide backed was actually a monster like the rest. 

Prowl thought. Jazz could see him turning it over in his head as he looked out at the stars.

“You were scared. You were hiding it, but you were still scared. I’ve watched you for years now. On each mission you put on a mask of confidence for your team. I’ve heard you on the comms telling them that help was coming, that you were on your way, even when **_I_** was certain any hope for the mission was lost. Seeing you scared…it was unacceptable.”

0-0-0

“Ambush,” one of the other lawyers said gently, “It meant that he was treated like an object. Did you see at the bottom where it said “Disposable?”

Ambush frowned.

“That refers to the ID, doesn’t it? Like Crystal City Visas, they have to be reissued every year…”

“No. They were referring to a mech. The mech you just outed and demanded proper paperwork from. His city saw him as an object. In Polyhex the Object Class weren’t even allowed genders, that’s why they refer to him as “it” on the form instead of he, she, or them.”

Ambush froze as the horror of his actions began to sink in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END.
> 
> Maybe.
> 
> This is all I have written for this square. I'm not looking to add to this, but while tweaking it I did add a few paragraphs so who knows. I was surprised at the amount of anger my little lawyer brought on himself! In my original plans Ambush wasn't so much a malevolent force as an ignorant one. I have a huge (HUGE) story that I'm going through that deals more in depth with the idea of immigration on Cybertron that I'm hoping to one day finish and put up here. (Warning: prompts, memes, and challenges are gateway fics. You'll find yourself actually posting all that stuff you write instead of just rereading it yourself) To me one of the most damaging aspects of these situations is ignorance. People like to think that they are good people, so sometimes they twist reality to fit that image of themselves. When they are confronted, they usually react with anger or denial. Ambush isn't quite that bad, so it's easier for him to openly show and feel remorse and in the original outline he did seek Jazz's forgiveness.


	29. Shorts 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short continuation from "Stranded" - Making friends is one thing, keeping them is another.

When help finally arrived Prowl was more nervous than he’d ever been before. He’d never been on base with a _friend_ before.

He was going to say something wrong. He was going to mess it up and all the other sparklings – coworkers, his coworkers, were going to make fun of Jazz for hanging out with the "weirdo" who never left tactics and then Jazz would stop being his friend and he had already planned a “movie night” with the other mech because he said he liked movies and now it wouldn’t happened and Prowl was going to be devastated and what was he going to do with all the rust sticks he was planning on ordering? He’d order them and then Jazz wouldn’t come and then Prowl would be sad every time he ate a rust stick because it would remind him of the time Jazz didn’t want to be his friend.

“Hey, mech, I think you need to take a deep vent and sit down.” It was Jazz.

“Jazz,” Prowl wheezed as he tried to calm down. “I don’t want to not like rust sticks anymore.”

Jazz blinked. He cycled his optics on and off. He flittered the iris shutters.

“Okay. How can I help?”

It only occurred then, that Jazz had not actually been part of his internal monologue and therefore had no idea what Prowl was talking about. Prowl fell silent. Should he tell Jazz what he’d been thinking? Should he keep it all to himself?

“Why don’t you just tell me, Prowler. Remember how we talked on the ship about how you prefer bots to be honest and up front with you about things? Why don’t you try that on me right now. Maybe I can help.”

Prowl nodded, some of the panic receding. That sounded like a logical thing to do. Good.

“I don’t want to think about you not being my friend anymore whenever I eat a rust stick because I’m going to order them for our movie night.”

“Okay, and why don't I want to be your friend?”

“Because I’m strange and the other Autobots won’t want you to be my friend because I’m strange. They’ll say things about you and to you and you won’t want to anymore.” Had he always sounded like a grumpy sparkling? Prowl tried to reorder his words into an adult sentence, but they kept slipping through his fingers.

“Well, first, I don’ care what other bots say. If they’re saying such awful things about ya, then I don’t think I want to be _their_ friend anyways. Second, I would never ghost ya like that Prowl. Third, I would love to go to a movie night. Did you have a movie in mind or are we just going to see what’s on the crew’s streaming services?”

Yes. That made sense. His processor was going too fast again. It tended to rush ahead of him and leave very little energy or processing power for other things like manners and proper grammar and diction.

“I don’t like movies, so I thought I would let you pick,” Prowl replied. For some reason that made Jazz look upset. What had he said?

“I don’t want you to do something ya don’t like Prowl just to hang out with me. We can always do somethin’ else.”

No no no! That was messing with the plan! Prowl shook his head.

“No, we need to have a movie night so I can learn to like them.” There, that made sense, right? It had come out closer to what he meant.

Jazz looked considering.

“So what you mean is that you don’t think ya like movies, but you’re willing to try them for now to see if you might like some of them?”

“Yes. That’s what I said.” 

“It’s what ya meant Prowl, but it wasn’t exactly what ya said,” Jazz replied, a slight grumble in his voice. 

Wait wait! This was arguing - he wasn’t supposed to do this and they’d only just decided to be friends!

“Of course,” Prowl said, “you’re right.”

That didn’t seem to appease him either!

“Prowl are you just saying that so I won’t argue anymore?”

“Yes?” Prowl ventured. 

“Okay, well, we can’t do that. It’s okay if we disagree on things. We just have to be honest.” Jazz looked frazzled. Prowl felt the familiar ache in his tanks that appeared whenever things started going wrong.

“First,” Jazz said, after a moment, “tell me how I can convince you we’re friends.”

That was…different. Usually it was the other way around.

“You have to…” Prowl trailed off. This had never happened before. 

The ship bumped as they landed. They were back at Autobot headquarters.

“Think on it, Prowl, and get back to me. You have my comm number. You can comm me anytime – and I mean ANY time. If it’s urgent – and by urgent I mean the Deceptions are attacking – flag it.”

“Of course,” Prowl said, indignant. He was the Head of Tactics. He knew how to sort urgent messages from not.

“Then ya can come and teach some of my ops mechs who comm me in the middle of my recharge with info packets about stargazing. Don’t forget!” Jazz was already out of the shuttle bay when Prowl shouted back that he never forgot anything.

0-0-0

How do your friends prove themselves to you?

This is about you, Prowl.

I have no base of reference. I am seeking out bots with the appropriate knowledge base.

You’re calling bots to ask about their friends?

Yes.

Who – never mind. Let me think.

Take your time. It takes 800 hours to learn a new skill.

Was that a joke?

Yes.

:) There. That’s one of the things I need. I need my friends to laugh with me.

0-0-0

Jazz, how do you stop a bot from yelling at you?

Who did you piss off?

Lancer. She didn’t like how I was conversing with Livewire.

What did you say?

I asked her how a mech could prove himself to her.

Ah. Explain why you asked. Tell her you and me are trying out being friends and you want to know more from Livewire because she’s so kind and patient.

She is not.

Lie, Prowler, she has you cornered, lie.

0-0-0

Am I interested in permanent markings?

No. Prowl, who are you talking to?

0-0-0

You mentioned timing being important for significant discussions.

Yes?

What would be the right time to bring up the fact that I can see Trailbreaker crying in his cubicle from the central hub?

…

Jazz?

Hold on, I’m accessing the video. Aw, frag. Yeah, go talk to him now. It’s not good news. He’s looking at the list of casualties.

Oh.

Do you want me to come? Breaker is a friend of mine.

No. I’ve done this before.

0-0-0

Why is Bluestreak crying?

I do not know. I thanked him for his help carrying a few things and asked if he was interested in coming to a movie night. He hugged me.

Okay. So he’s happy.

Are you sure? I was just going to apologize to him.

Trust me. He’s happy. Mech’s a bit of a loner too. It’ll be good for him to spend time with people.

I am a loner?

Not anymore.

0-0-0

Jazz.

Mmm? Prowl, ya didn’t tag this as urgent, but I’m in the middle o’ recharge.

I apologize.

…thanks. What’s going on?

I have just returned from the Deceptions. I…need to not be alone.

On my way.

0-0-0

Prowl held his data pad, thumbing it on and off nervously. Jazz was not yet late. He would come. He would probably come.

No. He would definitely come. Prowl vented slowly.

Jazz walked in.

“I have complied a list of things that prove to me that you want to be friends,” Prowl stated. He didn’t give Jazz a chance to reply.

“First, you must be honest with me. I need you to tell me when you are uncomfortable or when you want something." 

"Second, you need to let me do things without taking over. I lack personal skills, but I am still the Head of Tactics and I was Commander of the Praxus Enforcers for vorns before the war. I have earned those positions." 

"Third, you will be there when I need you. I won’t –“ Livewire had told him this, but it was hard to say. What if this was what broke – no. It wouldn’t. “I won’t be used and then ignored. If we are friends then we are friends all the time."

"Finally, I share the same requirement as you – I also need someone I can laugh with."

“Our conversations over the past few weeks have demonstrated that you fit all these qualities. Therefore, I would like to invite you, right now, to a movie night in my habsuite. Which is where we are.”

Prowl sat down abruptly as all the energy fled his body. There. He’d said what he wanted. It was up to Jazz now.

“I think,” Jazz said, “we should start with historicals.” Prowl blinked at him. “For the movies. I think you’ll like historicals best.” Jazz smiled. “I am happy to be your friend Prowl and I would love to go to your movie night. However, I _was_ promised rust sticks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Bet nobody thought they'd ever see this again! Certainly not me. I had the first bit from months ago when I was making the other shorts, but it fizzled. I'm working on the next chapter of Secret Baby (I would much prefer to work on chapter 12, but unfortunately chapter 8 has to come first) and I needed a quick break.
> 
> I love doing dialogue!
> 
> Also, the kudos and reviews have been amazing!


	30. Secret Baby 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siren is suspicious.

Jazz woke up confused. He blinked at the familiar/unfamiliar apartment he was in. This wasn’t one of his hotels –

Terror flooded him as he remembered.

“Siren!” he tried to shout, tumbling off the couch and onto his pedes. How could he have fallen into recharge with a sparkling to take care of? He had to -

“We’re right here Jazz!” Jazz looked up to see Siren still playing, a touch more warily, with his toys, a few steps away.

Hound. Beachcomber. Jazz felt his shoulders sag.

They _came_.

The tangle of fear and grief and dread that had nestled under his spark unwound slightly. It had grown every time he’d looked away, trying to focus on Siren, filling his processor with schedules and baths, until it had choked him.

They came. _His team_.

Jazz’s team was a hodgepodge of mechs and femmes. Some of them, like Blaster, had moved with Jazz into music after that strange, quiet war was over, the monsters put away, their mysterious handler gone silent. Others had come with him from the streets to the spy work and had stayed on as “music producers” like Hound and Cliffjumper.

They were his team. It had never been intended that way. He’d pulled more femmes and mechs in and soon the entire special operations teams had consisted of his people.

He hadn’t thought twice about asking them for help with surveillance. Old habits had come roaring back. But this… If Mirage was right (and he usually was), then he and Siren weren’t in immediate danger. A one mech team was better than a squad at lying low. This was for his comfort. 

0-0-0

“We got you Jazz,” Hound had murmured, squeezing him tightly. The tears didn’t seem to be slowing, if anything they were ramping up. Jazz covered his face with his servo. They had driven non-stop for hours just so that he wasn’t alone until Mirage could arrange a shuttle ticket back to Cybertron. They were his team, but they were also family. It had been easy to forget that, as he had walked backwards through Prowl’s lonely existence. He soaked up the feeling of being safe, of someone having his back.

A whimper drew his attention.

Siren was still on the floor, optics wide, as he stared at the two new mechs in a space where he’d probably never seen strangers.

Jazz clenched his fist and pulled back a much of the tangled emotions as he could, slipping them into a mental box labeled PROWL. There. He was fine.

“’s okay, bitlet. Come ‘er.” Jazz wiped his optics roughly with his digits and knelt down. He felt the buzz of a comm as Hound sent something to Mirage. Slag, his sensors were turned up too high.

Siren dropped his toys and ran. He thudded into Jazz and hid his face, but it wasn’t frantic. He wasn’t shaking and Jazz could feel the tension already leaving him. By the time Jazz stood, Siren in his arms, the sparkling was taking shaky vents and looking at the two newcomers with curiosity. 

_Yeah, bitlet_ , Jazz thought, _I got ya back, too_.

“Siren, these are my friends, Hound and Beachcomber.” He pointed to each and Siren inspected them.

“Hullo, Siren,” waved Beachcomber, not standing up from the couch. Siren returned the wave with a small one of his own.

“Hi, Siren,” Hound made no move to come closer. Siren looked him up and down slowly. Jazz just waited and rocked him slightly back and forth.

Finally, Siren came to a decision. He pointed one condemnatory digit at Hound and announced:

“Dirty!”

The word hung in the air for a moment, Siren puffed up, a tiny scowl on his face.

Beachcomber was the first to lose it. He fell over sideways and on the floor, burying his face in the cushion. Hound was next, a sharp breathless giggle that shook him like a paint mixer. He folded in half, supporting himself with his hands on his knees.

Jazz sat down on the floor, clutching Siren and trying to quiet his own laugh so he didn’t scare the already on edge and easily spooked sparkling.

“BathStoryBerth,” Siren intoned to Hound, as if he was imparting ancient wisdom. Well, he thought, for a 172 vorn sparkling, maybe he was.

“Little early for berth, Siren, but let’s offer our guests the washracks,” Jazz chortled.

Somewhere between Hound getting out of the washracks and Beachcomber knocking into the sparkling basin as he got in, Jazz had fallen into recharge.

0-0-0

And his team had stayed.

Jazz settled back down on the couch and Siren followed him with his optics, toys clenched in his servos. He wasn’t afraid of Beachcomber and Hound, but he was not quick to trust. 

“Wanna come o’er here, Siren?” Jazz asked with a tired smile. His suspicious little sparkling. 

_Was that from me or Prowl?_ Jazz wondered as Siren scooped up as much of his playset as possible and toddled over. He poured a transport ship, a Captain Impossible figure, and a half dozen smaller figures on the couch, then climbed up. He scrambled over the pile of plastic and wedged himself against Jazz, keeping the newcomers in his line of sight. He waited a few moments before resuming his game.

Mistrust of people – Prowl.

Excellent surveillance technique – Jazz.

Jazz put an arm around the sparkling and felt Siren snuggle in trustingly. His optics prickled.

“Sorry for fallin’ in t’ recharge on ya,” he said to the other two. Beachcomber waved it off as Hound unfolded himself from the ground and grabbed the desk chair.

“It’s only been two days, I can’t imagine how much recharge you’ve lost.”

Two days.

He suddenly, desperately, needed to not be in the dark. Trying to keep that out of his voice, he turned to the two of them and opened his mouth.

Hound beat him to it.

“We have all the information we could gather ready for you when you’re ready.” Good, solid, Hound. A match to Mirage.

“After we ge’ some energon?” Jazz suggested. “My shipment hasn’ come yet and we’re starvin’, ain’t we, sweetspark?” According to Prowl’s schedule, dinner was only thirty minutes away.

“Goodies,” Siren agreed absentmindedly as Captain Impossible carried a tankformer twice his size to safety.

“There’s nothing in the kitchen?”

“Sparkling cubes can’t contain preservatives. Whatever was left here I had ta toss.”

“Sounds good to me!” said Beachcomber, pretending he was picking up the toys instead of subtly playing with them.

“What do ya think, Siren. Ready ta get some dinner?” The sparkling’s optics lit up.

“Let’s go!” he shouted, knocking Beachcomber over with the volume. He trotted to the door, turbofox clutched tightly under his arm.

Jazz looked at both of them.

“He likes his schedule.”

0-0-0

Siren refused to let Hound or Beachcomber carry him, but he was fine holding one of their servos while crossing the intersections as long as Jazz’s servo was clutched tightly in his other.

Beachcomber treated Siren like a slightly smaller minibot, pointing out interesting things and asking his opinion on shops they were passing.

Siren declared Mirror Glaze’s confectionary to be “yummy!” and the paint store to be “Gate’s place!” The other shops were described by their color or state of disrepair. It was obvious who had been saying “disgraceful” to Siren about the state of one shop’s melting metal awning.

Hound hovered over both Siren and Jazz the whole way there. It was a trait he shared with Mirage.

Hound and Mirage were the only mechs Jazz had ever trusted enough to put in charge when he was the one on the mission. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the others – not trusting your team in SpecOps was often fatally stupid – but they were the only ones that could talk to him when he was deep undercover without tripping any old wounds.

That was mostly due to one very difficult night that involved quite a lot of high grade, tears, and the unfortunate purchase of a vacation package. Prowl had been the first one to learn all of his dreams, but his team had been with him to sort through the nightmares. Maybe, when – _when_ – they got Prowl back, he could start there.

He looked down at Siren and imagined that it was Prowl holding his other hand. Would their days off look like this? Swinging Siren between them, off to see Swerve for sweets.

“Keep walking,” Hound commed, “we are being followed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Siren just acquired a whole team of aunts and uncles that have flexible hours, hair-triggers, and access to explosives. 
> 
> Next chapter: Hound and Beachcomber share with Jazz what exactly they've discovered on their own. Siren adjusts to new housemates.


	31. Secret Baby Interludes 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl unpacks his boxes and upacks his past.

Prowl engaged both locks. Then he slumped against the door as the exhaustion finally hit. He gazed out at the piles of boxes yet to unpack. He hadn’t realized how many things he had acquired over the short time since Siren’s emergence. As an enforcer used to living in shared barracks, he wasn’t used to having much. He’d been able to fit everything in his subspace when he first moved to the horrible little room in the Distal Branch. Now he’d needed to rent a trailer for all of the toys, snacks, and furniture

Perhaps some of it was a long awaited rebound from his own days as a sparkling. What he wouldn’t have given for some of these growing up. Or just _one_. Even having one toy would have made his sparkling days easier. It wasn’t bad to be poor. It was however strange to have nothing. For your parents to continually refuse the toy donations.

He wouldn’t do that. Prowl was determined that no matter what it would cost, Siren would have everything he needed. He stroked the little helm where it rested against his chassis. The sparkling carrier had been his favorite purchase recently. Siren would never have to be alone. That was probably an old wound too.

His support group were working on him to accept the playdates which would eventually lead to Prowl places Siren in a daycare. He would continue to work from home as much as possible, but eventually he would have to return.

The idea of handing him off to people, even people he trusted, made something in his spark shudder.

Not yet.

Prowl shook off the feelings of dread and started moving the boxes. Today was a good day. He was in a nice habsuite. One with actual windows and a washrack. The enforcer in him had sized it up while they were picking it out: plenty of exits, good strong doors, and the ability to add your own locks on top of the existing ones. It didn’t have any security drones, but it did have an alarm.

Well, there was one thing that would lift his spirits. He walked over to a certain box and pulled it open with trembling hands. Siren, in his carrier, nuzzled and fell deeper into recharge. Prowl lifted the toy from the box.

It had cost him too much. Even used, it had taken more of his paycheck than he’d have liked. He’d stood in the street staring at it through the window of the junk shop until the flow of traffic had pushed him towards the doorway and he’d been helpless to stop himself. 

It wasn’t a collector’s edition. It wasn’t even rare, despite its age. The mech behind the counter had named a price and Prowl had weighed it in his mind. In the end he couldn’t just _leave_ him there. Buried under knock-off SMASH figures and old model spaceships.

It was the fourth edition Captain Impossible, the one he’d longed for as a child. Prowl gently moved his legs and arms, making him stand, making him fly. He could even pose him in his well-known “Savior” pose – one servo clenched over his spark, the other up in the air.

The joints were a little loose and the paint was worn and missing in places. The figures of today were all heat shrink plastic – his paint job had become much more detailed. The original Captain Impossible was broad blue doorwings, a black and yellow helm, and white frame. Not impossible to fix.

Prowl set him with care on one of the shelves he’d installed to keep things out of Siren’s reach once he started walking. He reached back to unpack the rest of the box and found something he hadn’t put there.

There, hidden underneath the toy, was a box from the art supply store. Prowl choked back a sob as he opened it.

_Saw your prize. Here are the paints you’ll need to fix him up! I mixed them myself so the colors should be perfect. Consider it a home-warming gift. See tomorrow at the park._

Prowl lifted the lid and found a set of paints, brushes, and sealants. Everything he would need to touch up his toy. 

He looked at the message on the lid and trembled. Other sparklings had had framed messages in their habsuites or houses. Sometimes in their rooms. Usually they were prayers or blessings from older relatives. It had been in fashion during his parents time to have well-wishes written for a new sparkling and hung in ornate frames over their bed.

Prowl carefully propped the lid of the box up on the shelf next to the figurine. He looked around at the messy, half-unpacked boxes, the scattering of toys Siren had played with while Prowl unloaded, and now the message from…from his _family_.

He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally have to leave for work in five minutes, but I had to share! Just a bunch of useless fluff! It has no relation to the plot...or does it?


End file.
